Is It Safer to Have 2 Short Surgeries or 1 Long Surgery?

From your description you wish to have a Tummy Tuck and liposuction of your leg, and an  arm lift. In my practice I try to limit surgeries to less than 6 hours to decrease risks. The procedures that you mentioned can all be done in that time period so I would recommend one surgery. To minimize anesthesia and surgical time but not your results I also use a second surgical assistant (surgeon, PA, or RNFA) to decrease total OR time. It is important to  go over the increased risks associated with combining procedures and make sure they have a complete informed consent prior to doing it in one stage and take special measures to prevent venous clots.In your case, except on rare occasions my total OR time would be less than 6 hours for these procedures that you are considering.

Discuss this with your board certified plastic surgeon.

There are two factors to having two operations.  One is the surgical procedure itself, the second is the anesthetic.  For general anesthesia, the most critical times are induction and emergence.  Therefore, combining two procedures in one, if expeditionally carried out is probably safer than two surgeries.  This may differ by surgeon, profiency of procedures and in fact, anesthesia, personnel and facilities.  Many surgeries performed in small office OR's do not have the monitoring equipment or MDA's present which for for greater monitoring staff and patient safety.  Generally most outpatient procedures shoud be accomplished in approximately five hours to be considered an outpatient procedure. 

The first rule of cosmetic surgery is patient safety. Surgery that is over 5 or 6 hours can have a higher rate of complications and often require an overnight hospital stay. Therefore, trying to squeeze as many operations into one surgery is not a smart way to practice medicine. Secondly, the recovery specifics for one operation may contradict the recovery instructions for a different operation. For instance, a tummy tuck will require the patient to use their arms much more to get up from a seated position or getting out of bed. An arm lift requires a patient to go easy on the use of their arms to limit swelling in the arms or tugging on the incision lines. Therefore, combining a tummy tuck and an arm lift is not wise as the postoperative requirements are contradictory. Patients often think one operation will save them a lot of money, but the bottom line of cosmetic surgery is not cost, its success of the surgery with long-lasting results.