All surgical procedures carry some inherent risk. Risk needs to be stratified in regards to the incidence versus impact. Liposuction and tummy tuck surgery both have potential for serious medical complications, including fatality. The risk of having these types of procedures is usually about the same risk in regards to mortality as driving an automobile for about a year. In reality serious medical complications are still relatively rare, and in reality most patients who have regrets regarding cosmetic surgery. It is not because they had a serious medical complication, but rather that the results did not turn out the way they had hoped. For that reason, disfigurement is probably the most realistic complication Patients should actually be worried about. The chance of having undesirable outcomes, whether it is, poor aesthetic, outcomes, or medical complications, can to some degree be lessened by carefully selecting providers, who have sufficient skill and experience. Finding the right plastic surgeon is much more difficult than most people think. Simply reading providers reviews on various websites is generally insufficient to properly vet, plastic surgeons, regarding overall skill and experience The following are some general guidelines for finding the best provider for your needs. Provider selection is important for any cosmetic surgical procedure, but is especially critical for procedures like liposuction, which have a high degree of variance based on provider selection The following are some general guidelines for finding the right provider To find the best provider, I suggest patient schedule multiple in person consultations with experienced plastic surgeons in their community. During each consultation, ask each provider to open up their portfolio and show you their entire collection of before and after pictures of previous patients who have similar body or facial characteristics to your own. An experienced plastic surgeon should have no difficulty showing you the before and after pictures of at least 50 previous patients. An experienced provider should in fact have hundreds or preferably thousands of before and after pictures to choose from for commonly performed procedures. Being shown a handful of preselected images, representing the best results of a provider’s career is insufficient to get a clear understanding of what average results will look like in the hands of each provider. There is no correct number of consultations needed to find the best provider. The more consultations you scheduled the more likely you are to find the best provider for your needs. Take careful notes during each consultation, especially regarding the quantity and quality of before and after pictures. It’s not a bad idea to bring pictures of your own body/face to use as reference when reviewing before and after pictures. The biggest mistake patients make is scheduling only one consultation without properly vetting or comparing providers before scheduling surgery. Best, Mats Hagstrom, MD