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.

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.

Every graduate of a medical school who passes Part II of the National Boards is eligible to receive a medical license.  The license makes the holder eligible to practice "medicine and surgery".  It doesn't make him or her qualified or trained to do either.  Board certification in plastic surgery comes after lengthy residencies (in my case, general surgery followed by plastic surgery), a written board examination and a two-day, oral examination involving case presentations.  Plastic surgeons are not certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery until they have been in practice for at least two years, which basically puts them 9 years past medical school.  The ABPS is one of the official, national boards under the aegis of the American Medical Association.  It is not a "do it yourself" kind of board which invites and certifies all comers.  So, there is a vast difference between the holder of a medical degree who may have trained and even been certified in pediatrics, internal medicine, etc., etc.  and a board certified plastic surgeon.  As for the Life Style lift, which is basically a superficial face lift, I do have issues with it.  First, my patients describe hard sell techniques, spending much more time with the selling patient coordinator than with the doctor, being unable to reach the physician in the evenings or on weekends, physicians who do not have local hospital privileges, etc.  Some doctors who work for this company fly in and fly out.  Their facilities in New York are not accredited by the Joint Commission, which means that they cannot offer sedation.  One size does not fit all in facial cosmetic surgery so I would be wary of any facility which offers just one or two procedures and is not community based.