How to Choose a Facelift Surgeon
Northern Virginia, Maryland & Washington, DC

The Austin-Weston Center for Cosmetic Surgery located in Reston, Virginia, specializes in facial surgery, including facelift, brow lift, rhinoplasty and neck sculpting for Northern Virginia, Maryland & Washington, DC.

Your selection of a plastic surgeon is the most important decision you will make about your face lift procedure. Nothing will make a bigger impact on your surgical experience and your quality of results than your choice of plastic surgeon. Here are some basic tips that can help you in making this all-important decision.

Get Recommendations from Friends and Family

If you know someone who had a face lift, talk to them about their surgery and whether they would recommend their plastic surgeon. This is a great starting place, but it should never be the ending point for your decision-making process. Here are some important factors to take into account about your friend's recommendation:

• How much research did my friend do in selecting a face lift surgeon?
• How do I feel about the quality of my friend's results?
• How do I feel about the quality of my friend's experience?
• In talking about the practice, do their values reflect my own?

Asking these questions will help you decide how good the recommendation is for your purposes.

Do Some Research

Nowadays, the Internet gives you access to more details about plastic surgery practices than ever before. Ideally, a quality plastic surgery practice will use its website as a tool for helping you to make informed decisions about plastic surgery procedures, and in the process will tell many details about the practice and its surgeons. Don't forget to look at the websites of surgeons recommended by friends and family. When looking at the website you should consider:

• What are the practice's main values? Do they reflect my own?
• Does the practice have a number of before and after images that give me a good sense of their results?
• Does the practice offer a variety of techniques that allow me to get a customized procedure? Consider whether they offer options such as a mid-face lift, neck lift, and short-scar facelift.
• What training, experience, and technology do the surgeons have?
• Are they certified specifically by The American Board of Plastic Surgery?

Using these criteria should allow you to narrow down your number of potential surgeons to a manageable list.

Schedule Consultations

Once you have a short list of surgeons you're considering, it's time to schedule consultations. You may want to meet with a few surgeons before committing to one. During your personal consultation, you should get answers to a number of questions:

• Do I personally trust the surgeon's training and skill? Will I feel comfortable working with this surgeon?
• Is the surgeon honest with me about the procedure's risks and benefits?
• How comfortable do I feel about the surgeon's recommendations for my surgery? Can the surgeon show me before and after images from a case similar to mine?
• Is the practice professional and focused on safety? Does it offer sufficient privacy?

Once you have evaluated all these questions, you can select the surgeon that you feel comfortable working with. Remember, you don't have to make a decision. You have only one face--don't risk it by working with a surgeon that makes you feel anything but fully confident. If your first round of considering surgeons doesn't yield one you like, start again. Your successful face lift results will last for years, it's okay if finding the right surgeon takes a few more months.

At The Austin-Weston Center for Cosmetic Surgery, we invite you to consider our practice for your facelift. The training and experience of our surgeons, the quality of our facilities, and our excellent track record speak for themselves. Please call or email us today to schedule your face lift consultation. We happily serve the areas of Washington DC, Virginia, and Maryland.