Is She a Resident, Fellow, or Attending?

You should just ask this directly of the program there and ask the doctor for specifics and how many of these they have done and who will be present there to help them. Remember that when you are having a resident or a fellow do your surgery, they are not the same as an experienced plastic surgeon. Your procedure is very basic so that may be fine but a facelift would not be optimal under these circumstances. Essentially, a "resident" is in a core training program... more

It is confusing because there are many different types of residency programs. There are traditional programs that require the physician to finish general surgeon before entering a plastic surgery fellowship, then there are "combined programs" where the physician does some general surgery and then training in plastic surgery and they are sometimes called residents and sometimes called fellows. Either way, there is the same amount of training for both. With resident surgery... more

Technically, she is a plastic surgery fellow, because she has completed a general surgery residency and is now training in plastic surgery as a fellow. Whether she is a fellow or resident really doesn't matter, she is still in training. I am sure you understood this, when you chose to go to the resident clinic. You can get very good surgery at these training clinics provided the fellow has been trained properly and reviews cases with the attending plastic surgeon. Adrian Lo, MD more