Hi there-
I am in absolute agreement with my colleague below.
I see 1-2 patients every week who are in need of corrective surgery after having some type of liposuction procedure performed (usually a "smart" liposuction) elsewhere. In almost every one of these cases, the corrective procedure necessary is much larger and more expensive that the procedure I would have performed for them had they come to me in the first place, because we are no longer dealing with normal anatomy.
Again, in almost all of these cases, these expensive corrections are necessary because the patient had their original procedure performed by an unqualified practitioner who advertised some fancy machine or another, with false promises that cannot be kept.
There are a few incontrovertible facts you, and every patient should know:
Your outcome is MUCH more dependent on the practitioner and his/her skill and experience than on the tool he/she chooses to use. I personally prefer the VASER because I think that it is safer and more effective than laser options (like SmartLipo), but I have seen equally bad outcomes from the VASER when the procedure was performed by poorly trained local gynecologists or even eye doctors and not a Board Certified Plastic Surgeon.
A useful analogy is to think of what we do just as you would think of a work of art--- Michelangelo would tell you that he chose his paint pigments and brushes very carefully, but we would all be foolish to think that with those same tools any of us could paint the Sistine Chapel's ceiling. The surgeon you choose is so much more important than his chosen tool that your question is a bit like asking if when shopping for art you should look for an artist who uses one type of paint or another. This point cannot be over-emphasized- find a surgeon Certified by The American Board of Plastic Surgery and follow their recommendations. The tool is much less important. A good surgeon will produce good outcomes with any tool. A poorly trained and inexperienced practitioner without basic plastic surgery training will most likely not. You wouldn't come to me for eye surgery or your pap smear.
Plastic surgeons spend YEARS training in liposuction and body contouring techniques- most practitioners advertising the machine they use do so because advertising their actual credentials would not get them patients (no one is going to rush to a doctor's office because he is admitting that his training was in ophthalmology but he is doing liposuction to make money). These practitioners "learned" to do liposuction over the course of a few days or weeks, and usually from a salesman for the company selling them the expensive liposuction machine they then advertise to you.
Be careful. In the final analysis, all patients seeking aesthetic improvement are hoping to achieve a certain appearance. That is the goal of the endeavor, not to have a surgery with a particular tool or for a particular price. Find a reputable Plastic Surgeon, describe your goal, have an exam, and follow their recommendations. Shopping for a certain machine or making decisions based on the lowest price is likely to cause you to eventually end up in one of our offices 6 months from now needing corrective surgery.
