This is a really smart question, and I'm glad you are taking the time to research your doctors. The first step is finding out if the surgeon is board certified by the appropriate board, and the only ABMS recognized board for plastic surgery is the American Board of Plastic Surgery. You can verify a surgeon by looking them up on the boards website. If they are not on there, look for another surgeon. If they are on there, an additional place to verify credentials is the American Society of Plastic Surgery (ASPS), which requires additional criteria on top of the Board, and a separate application process. You can also check if the surgeon is a member of the American College of Surgeons (usually surgeons who are members put "FACS" after their names, to signify they are also Fellow of the American College of Surgeons), which is also an entirely separate process of application and acceptance, and involves interviews etc. Next, you can look at local hospitals to see which hospitals the surgeon has privileges at, and this is useful because each hospital has its own independent process to vet a surgeon, and check her/his credentials. Each surgeon also has to maintain these privileges by renewing each year. If you don't know which hospitals to check, you can typically find a list on each surgeons website, and go down the hospitals on the list. The most misleading place to search is the physicians own website, and I say this because everything on there is written by either the surgeon or someone working for the surgeon, and is meant to be a marketing tool. For example, just because a surgeon himself calls himself world-renowned, does not mean he is world-renowned. That would be more valid if you saw a bunch of other sources calling the surgeon that, rather than the surgeon himself. Regarding TV appearances, some networks or shows do a comprehensive search and seek out leaders in the field, but generally speaking, TV appearances are more a reflection of marketing skill, trendiness of a given procedure or name, and strong TV presence rather than surgical skill or expertise. Next, you can search reviews but do this with a grain of salt. Some offices offer discounts to patients who write a positive review, so they are not necessarily an honest unbiased account. Some competitors may also write negative reviews, skewing the reviews in the opposite way. Some reviews are not about the physician at all, and may be low due to the hassle of traffic or parking, or something else that does not reflect the true nature of the doctor. In reality, every surgeon has happy patients and unhappy patients, but hopefully the unhappy ones are few and far between. Asking another doctor for a referral is also a good method, since this is an additional level of support. Regarding researching complaints, you can check the Medical Board of California's website to find out if the surgeon has an active medical license, and see if there have been complaints. The above is a good starting point, but make sure you also look at the surgeons before and after photos to see if you like the work, and inquire if that surgeon will do the work herself/himself if you go to an office with more than one surgeon, or with doctors in training.
