Is Experience Important in Choosing a Fraxel re:pair Physician?

Hi again JJ,

Fraxel re:pair is a very powerful CO2 laser.  If a physician has had experience with traditional CO2 lasers then there is no problem with having the treatment after the physician has performed a few treatments.   The step from traditional CO2 lasers to Fraxel re:pair is small, the step from no CO2 laser experience to Fraxel re:pair is great.

If a physician has had no experience with CO2 lasers then 9 treatments is a little early on the learning curve.  It is good that you are considering a surgeon trained in a cosmetic specialty.

You are doing the right thing by choosing your treating physician carefully.  Be well.

Dr. P

New devices, drugs and therapies, and technological advances are coming to medicine in general at a very rapid pace.  Literally hundreds of new or updated or upgraded lasers alone have hit the marketplace over the last decade.  Everything that is now "old hat" was new at some point, and being used by some practitioner for the first time.

A well-trained surgeon or physician who educates himself about the newest technical and therapeutic advances, and who exercises good judgement in selecting the proper circumstances in which to employ the newest advance, is much more critical than the device itself.  Most often, the new device has been studied and tried in simulation by the doctor before it is used for the first time in practice.  But even the pilot of a jumbo jet has to climb into the real cockpit and out of the simulator eventually, so the training and judgement is what is important, and experience comes later.

If you trust your doctor, you should believe that he wouldn't do anything to harm you, or that he did not himself feel capable of doing well.

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