Difference Between Board Certified and Just Licensed?

"Licensed" means the doctor has a medical license, which every single practicing doctor in the country has. 

Board certified in plastic surgery is tough to get.  You have to be an actual surgeon.  You have to train in plastic surgery.  You have to pass tough examinations by an AMA sanctioned entity, the American Board of Plastic Surgery. 

"Cosmetic surgeon" "Aesthetic surgeon" are wastebasket terms that anybody can use, even a doctor trained yesterday at the worst medical school in the country who finished at the bottom of his class.  Weekend course not even required to use those terms.

The patients we have seen in our office who have had the LifeStyle Lift have been uniformly dissatisfied.  They have all the scars of a regular facelift, clumsily performed.  They have had none of the benefits of deep tissue restructuring, platysmal improvement, let alone the high skill level required to make scars virtually invisible.  And they are facing redoing their work entirely, if they can now afford it after spending their hard earned money on the minilift.

There is not a board certification just for a facial procedure. Usually a board certified plastic surgeon or a board certified Ear, Nose, and Throat Specialist with a facial Plastic Surgery Fellowship are qualified to do these procedures.

Being Board Certified with the American Board of Plastic Surgery is the standard for finding a fully trained plastic surgeon that performs plastic surgery on both the face and body. Unfortunately, in the United States any licensed MD can perform any type of procedure they desire if they are licensed in that specific state. Plastic surgery has become the “buyer beware specialty” so choose your surgeon wisely. Finding a Board Certified Plastic Surgeon who is a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgery or a member of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery is the main goal.

You only have one face.  There are plenty of surgeons in your area certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery (ABPS).  My advice is to see one or more of them, and choose an ABPS certified surgeon for your procedure.  Lifestyle Lift is a procedure trademarked by a company that is NOT a licensed physician or surgeon, NOT subject to State of California Business and Professions Code (including provisions for ethical advertising), and although the company contracts with physicians who are licensed, Lifestyle Lift is unlikely to have the quality control standards of the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.  Again, you only have one face.  Protect it.  If your surgeon doesn't have the highest standards for his or her own training and certification, what type of standards do you believe he or she will have for your facelift??

1. To have a medical license in most states, a doctor needs to have graduated from an accredited medical school and completed just 2 years of residency training,  but not necessarily have actually finished his or her residency training. Once licensed, a doctor can perform any type of medicine or surgery that a hospital or office will allow, so a doctor can perform cosmetic surgery with very little real training.

2. Board Certification means that a physician has completed an accredited residency, passed an exam, and fulfilled other requirements. Go to ABMS.org to see a list of the true, recognized medical boards in the U.S. Boards like the American Board of Plastic Surgery or the American Board of Otolaryngology are ABMS member boards. However, non-ABMS boards may require no special training or examination. So alway ask the doctor in WHAT field he or she is certified.

3. If the doctor you met is not board certified, then they likely did not complete a residency in plastic surgery or have not completed the examination process. Be careful.

4. As far as the Lifestyle Lift, the overall satisfaction rate on Real Self is very low.

Board-certification is the least you should expect of your aesthetic practitioner.

I would not see anyone who is not board-certified in plastic surgery, or ENT with a subspecialty in facial plastic.

Beyond that you must search out people who are experienced and compassionate, who have good judgement, and for whom you can uncover good reviews. Try to speak with someone who works in the medical field.

Regarding the Lifestyle Lift, you can absolutely ignore all newly introduced procedures or products for at least 3 years. By then they will all have disappeared, with very few exceptions, because either they don't work, they're actually dangerous, or both.

Good luck.

Interestingly, the LifeStyle Lift company has successfully branded a facelift operation for providing great results regardless of the expertise and credentials of the surgeon performing the operation. In my opinion, the LifeStyle Lift TV commercials are misleading especially in their depiction of before and after photos.

You would be best served by consulting several board-certified facial plastic surgeons to see what could be achieved with well-performed facelift surgery. Credentials, experience, and photos are critical in choosing your surgeon. You can check abfprs.org for a list of local certified specialists.

I hope this is helpful for you.

Regards from NJ.

All Board Certified doctors need to be Licensed by the State in which they practice. The state does this one year after medical school after completing an internship and passing and exam. This is before any specialty training happens.

For complete details on what it takes to be a Board Certified Plastic Surgeon, click on "more" and then the grey link below this answer. It will take you to an article with references on how to check you doctor's credentials.

In brief, I am Board Certified in both  Plastic Surgery and General Surgery and spent eight years after medical school training for the privilege. It is not necessary to be Board Certified in General Surgery before becoming Board Certified in Plastic Surgery. It possible to become Board Certified in Plastic Surgery with a minimum of 5 years of training.

Any physician who finishes medical school and passes the National Board of Medical Examiners test (NBME) can be licensed by a state he or she decides to practice in. Board certification means, that after you finish medical school, you continue into a residency medical program, either a surgical or medical field. All plastic surgeons in this country succesfully completed a general surgery (5 years), otolaryngology (4-5 years), orthopedic surgery (5 years), urology (5years) residency before going on and completing another 2-3 years of plastic surgery residency. A newer pathway is a combined 6 year general surgery/plastic surgery residency. The surgeon needs to pass a written and an oral examination before they can be certified in plastic surgery. So, you see there's a world of a difference between board certified and just licensed physicians. Also, every board certified surgeon must be licensed by the state as well. You can read more about board certification on my web site. As for the lifestyle lift, I agree with all the other surgeons; it is minimal surgery for maximum dollars with bad scars and short lived results.

Bottom line, yes your facelift surgeon should be board certified.  There are a number of boards whose diplomates offer facelifts to the public.  This includes General Plastic Surgery, Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Ophthalmology, and Dermatology.  However, the California Medical Board has opined that it is difficult to conclude that surgeons finishing any of these residencies without further training are qualified to offer facelifts and other cosmetic services.  I would also argue that the depth of experience from residency training is not sufficient for individuals to rely solely on this training to safely offer many cosmetic surgery services to the public.  

So how do surgeons gain enough training, skills, and experience to safely offer these services?  For general plastic surgeon, they do aesthetic fellowships, work with a more experienced surgeons at first, take weekend courses, and unfortunately some simply take the very few cases they did as residents, hang out their shingles, and plow right into surgical practice.  Amazingly, there are very talented surgeons out their who have done quite well with the later approach.  However this is the exception rather than the rule.  Additional fellowship training makes an big difference.  For Otolaryngologists, some also plow right into practice without further training and again a small number do OK with this approach.  However, the more common defined training pathway is Facial Plastic Surgery Fellowship Training.  For Ophthalmologists, the path way is through ASOPRS 2 year fellowships in Oculoplastic Surgery.  These are rigorous training programs that now offer very strong facelift experience.  These fellowships are going to ACGME accreditation meaning that eventually, this will be the only other board with plastic surgery in its name.  Dermatologists have a defined pathway of dermatologic surgery and these fellowships do vary considerably in the depth and scope of surgical training.  FInally, Maxillofacial surgeons also offer training to their residents in facelifting.  Additional training for them is not as clearly defined and may include a one or two year fellowships in cosmetic surgery through the American Board of Cosmetic Surgery.  This is not the waste can described by one of the doctors posting here but much greater care should be used in assessing the qualifications of a surgeon trained in this pathway.

What about "non-board certified surgeons" (but licensed)?  Again this is a very broad category.  Generally you are looking for someone who is a very good student to be your surgeon-diligence, skill and follow through is what makes a great surgeon.  Surgeons who are not board certified did not finish something.  It is a red flag.  Were they bad students?  Did they have behavior or drug problems?  What was it that caused them not to finish their training and to fail to complete the board certification in whatever surgical speciality they were trained in?  Do you really want to have to worry about this in a facelift surgeon?  

Additionally, you should check with your State Medical Board to see if there have been any actions against your potential surgeon's medical license.  They should have hospital privileges for any procedure they offer as well as medical malpractice insurance.  I encountered a patient once who had a terrible surgical result.  When I reviewed her medical records, I was dumbfounded to discover among her papers that before surgery, her surgeon had her sign a notarized document that she understood that he did not carry medical malpractice insurance and she waived all her rights to sue him if she did not like the way surgery turned out!  The point being, please do not ignore the warning signs.  If something is not right, move on, this will not be the last surgeon on earth.  Don't let you own narcissism blind you to issues with a surgeon.  Being on TV does not necessarily disqualify a surgeon but it is not a guarantee of good work either.

Now about proprietary, cookie cutter facelifts.  I won't comment on a particular company, that would be inappropriate.  However, generally any surgeon or company that advertises how fast your surgery is performed is barking up the wrong tree.  Who cares if it takes an extra 45 minutes in surgery to properly tailor your facelift so it looks like it belongs on your face.  Generally these types of businesses seem to attract surgeons who could not get their own facelift practices going.  I am sure there are some excellent results out there.  Unfortunately I do not get to see those in my office.  What I seen are individuals who are unhappy with the result of the proprietary facelift and are looking for help to fix them.  I would recommend that no matter how tempting the price saving might be, ask yourself if this is really the place to save a few bucks.  Do your homework which does mean look careful at post reviews of these providers.  Do be aware that in the State of New York, the Liftstyle facelift folks did enter into a settlement with the State of NewYork because some of their employees where posting online pretending to be very satisfied customers.  Presumably this practice has stopped but be aware that it can be difficult as a consumer to get a clear picture of who you can trust.

Hope that information is helpful. 

Surgeons who are board certified in Facial Plastic or Plastic Surgery have gone through rigorous training in plastic surgery and have taken an exam to become certified. You want to trust your face to an EXPERIENCED plastic or facial plastic surgeon to get the best result possible. Look for excellent results and talk to the surgeon's patients!