What operations are most likely to lead to litigation? It is helpful for both patients and doctors to know which operations are most often followed by litigation and why this is.
It allows the surgeon to emphasize the areas of concern in the preoperative counselling. The surgeon can then guard against too optimistic an approach to a particular procedure.
For the patient it allows a non-medical person to know which operation fellow patients are least happy with and perhaps avoid them. If nothing else it helps to create a realistic attitude for both the doctor and the patient about what cosmetic surgery can do and what it cannot.
Long term problems can occur after any surgery and cosmetic surgery is no exception to this. A realistic perspective will help to avoid dissatisfaction.
Contrary to media suggestions cosmetic surgery is not a cure for all ills and sometimes can produce more problems than it solves. Recent research has shown that the operation most likely to lead to dissatisfaction is rhinoplasty or nose-job.
Of all the law suits studied over a ten year period by one insurance company this operation accounted for over 22% of malpractice claims. Second was breast reduction with 17%. In this study facial resurfacing was associated with the least number of claims with only 2%.
We will discuss some of these topics in more detail in other articles, linked below, but the statistics were:
RHINOPLASTY 22%
BREAST REDUCTION 17%
BLEPHAROPLASTY 16%
BREAST AUGMENTATION 13%
FACELIFT 9%
MISCELLANEOUS 7%
BREAST RECONSTRUCTION 6%
ABDOMINAL SURGERY 5%
LIPOSUCTION 3%
FACIAL RESURFACING 2%