How to tell if your cosmetic surgeon is suitably qualified

Cosmetic surgeons provide details of their qualifications by placing letters after their name or by displaying certificates in their clinics. But which cosmetic surgery qualifications should you be looking for when you are choosing the most appropriate practitioner for your treatment?

Cosmetic surgeons’ qualifications

Initially all doctors and surgeons in the UK start out by completing 5 years of study in a medical degree. This provides the basic medical qualification of either:

MBChB - Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery, or
MBBS - Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery

Once medical graduates complete 2 years of training as a house-officer within a hospital, then they may be registered by the General Medical Council (GMC). This is where your research into a cosmetic surgeon should begin. All doctors and surgeons must be registered on the GMC’s medical register in order to practice in the UK. You can search this register online at www.gmc-uk.org. When you’ve found your surgeon’s details on their website, click to see if there are any more details, such as being listed in the Specialist Register. There isn’t a separate list of specialists on the GMC website, but you can click on a particular surgeon’s name on the GMC’s medical register to see more details about their further qualifications and specialisations.

Your cosmetic surgeon will have spent two further years training in basic surgery, also known as specialty training years 1 and 2 (ST1 and ST2) and sat exams to gain the following qualification:

MRCS - Member of the Royal College of Surgeons

This is followed by a further five or six years specialising in a particular type of surgery, such as plastic surgery. After successfully completing these years of surgical training and passing the relevant exams, your surgeon will be awarded the Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) award. Only then will your surgeon be allowed to place one of the following letters after their name, depending on where they qualify:

FRCS - Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England
FRCS(Ed) - Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
FRCS(Glas) - Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Glasgow
FRCSI - Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland

Surgeons tend to specialise in one particular area. The following qualifications are examples of additional credentials that show a surgeon is highly qualified and experienced in a particular specialty:

FRCSPlast - Specialist Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in England (plastic surgery)
FRCS(GenSurg) - Specialist Fellowship in General Surgery
FRCS(OFMS) - Specialist Fellowship in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
FRCS(Otol) - Specialist Fellowship in Otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat)
FRCS(ORL) - Specialist Fellowship in Otorhinolayryngology (head, neck, facial)

You may also like to ask about the experience of your anaesthetist and check that they have undergone the seven years of training to qualify as:

FRCA - Fellowship of the Royal College of Anaesthetists

Some surgeons may choose to only place their highest qualification at the end of their name, such as FRCS(Plast) without all the lower-level degrees mentioned. As one patient commented, “For all I knew, the impressive looking letters after a surgeon’s name could mean he was a qualified plumber! It is definitely worth familiarising yourself with what they actually mean.”

As a final note, it is important to understand the difference between a plastic surgeon and a cosmetic surgeon. A plastic surgeon is effectively trained in several types of restorative surgery and has trained in surgical procedures for things like burns, maxillofacial (facial) disfigurements and breast cancer surgery. Their qualifications do not automatically mean that they are experienced in cosmetic surgery. A cosmetic surgeon is a surgeon who has chosen to specialise in aesthetic surgery, which is different to reconstructive surgery. However, there aren’t any particular exams that they would have sat in order to do so. So in effect, any surgeon may call themselves a ‘Cosmetic Surgeon’ and there is no actual register of cosmetic surgeons in the UK. This is why it is always vital to enquire about the number of times your surgeon has undertaken your particular procedure to gauge their experience, and to enquire about the proportion of complications, revision rates and complaints they have received to gauge their competency.

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