How to Go About Finding a Breast Doctor

Since there are so many breast doctors practicing across the United States today, you most likely find yourself faced with dozens of decisions when wanting to find a practitioner for yourself. While asking for reviews of a breast doctor in the area from family and friends can be a great place to start, you may not have the same needs or goals as your family and friends do, and you may feel uncomfortable asking these individuals for help in making this private decision. After all, the appearance of your breasts or the changing of them is an incredibly personal matter.

Another option as you start to narrow down the field is online reviews. Online reviews about area doctors can give you an idea of who the premier surgeons in the area are and what their strengths are. However, you may quickly realize that people are more likely to write online reviews when they have had a negative experience. Therefore, even these reviews may be somewhat skewed, and you should always take them with a grain of salt.

When it comes down to the final decision, it is really up to you to determine who the right breast doctor is for your needs. Because this is an intensely personal decision, here are three tips for you to help you get started down the right path. If you can feel confident in each of these three areas, you have probably found a great breast doctor for yourself.

Check Out the Breast Procedures the Doctor Performs

The first and most obvious step that you will want to take when choosing a breast doctor is to determine whether a surgeon performs the procedure that you want. Surgical breast procedures focus on increasing the size of your breast tissue, lifting the breast tissue that you already have to create a more youthful appearance, or decreasing the size of your breast tissue. Not all breast doctors perform each of these three procedures as part of their practices. By knowing what you want to accomplish for your body shape, you will be best able to find a breast doctor who will provide you with exactly what you need.

Breast Augmentation

The most popular breast procedure performed today is breast augmentation, which is often called the boob job or breast implants. In 2017, over 300,000 individuals received breast augmentations. There may be several reasons why you want to have this procedure performed. Most often, women are unhappy with the size of their breasts because they naturally have smaller breasts. They may want to fill out their clothing better or feel more confident wherever they go. Another reason that women seek out this procedure is to restore lost breast tissue following pregnancy and lactation or even following the normal aging process. Some women may need augmentations following breast cancer or mastectomies.

Breast augmentations are surgical procedures that can produce nearly any type of breast shape or size that you desire. Your results can look completely natural or can appear very visible depending on your goals. You will most likely choose between saline or silicone implants with the help of our breast doctor. Most women opt for silicone implants because they feel so natural. However, you will need to have regular breast checks to ensure that the silicone implants are staying healthy and whole.

Breast Lift

A breast lift is another great way to see more youthful-looking breasts. However, it should not be confused with the breast augmentation. Unlike an augmentation during which additional volume is added to the breasts, a breast lift only raises the tissues that are already present into a more natural-looking shape. This procedure may be a great option for you if you have noticed your breasts sagging or drooping with age or if past surgeries, pregnancies or weight loss have left you with unnatural-looking breasts.

During this surgical procedure, our doctor will make several incisions around your areolas as well as at the base of your breasts depending on how severely your breasts are sagging. He may need to remove some tissues, such as stretched-out skin, to create a better shape. Our doctor may also need to raise your areolas if you have moderate to severe sagging. Although you will not end up with larger breasts, you will feel far better about the shape and location of your breasts. Many women combine a breast lift with an augmentation for the best results.

Breast Reduction

Breast reductions may not be as well-known as breast augmentations are but they are no less helpful to women who are looking for great shapes and renewed confidence in their bodies. Some women naturally have very large breasts that are difficult to fit into their clothes. For some, this added weight on their chests can lead to long-lasting back and neck pain from the strain. Others may be able to notice that one of their breasts is larger than the other. This procedure can address each of these problems to create an incredibly natural-looking breast shape.

Understand Credentials and Accreditations

Before you even meet your intended breast doctor, you will want to find out as much as possible about the doctor, his or her office and the facility at which the doctor performs treatments. First, you will want to choose only a board-certified surgeon for any of the above procedures. Board certification tells you that the doctor is licensed in the state and is in good standing with the medical board of your state. While this certainly does not tell you everything that you will want to know about the doctor, it does lay the groundwork of confidence in the procedure you are going to have performed.

Of course, there are many different terms that you may see listed on a provider’s website. For example, the doctor may be called a cosmetic surgeon, an aesthetic specialist, or a plastic surgeon. Although these terms may seem alike, they are actually quite different. Each one limits the provider in the types of procedures he or she can do. For an invasive breast procedure, you will most likely want to choose a plastic surgeon or possibly a cosmetic surgeon.

Next, look at any additional credentials that the doctor has. Finding someone credentialed by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons is particularly important if you are wanting to have a surgical procedure performed. The ASPS is a nationally known body that ensures its member doctors live up to numerous expectations. For example, doctors that are credentialed by the ASPS have had at least six years of surgical training with at least three years of training in plastic surgery. In addition, these doctors have passed intense examinations and continue to keep up their surgical knowledge and skills using continuing education modules every year.

In addition, an ASPS breast doctor also must work in an accredited or state-licensed surgical facility. This is why it is just as important for you to look at the facility in which your doctor performs as it is to consider the treatments he or she can provide. The surgical facility should be clean and well-maintained. The surgical suites should be full of cutting-edge technology so that you receive the very best care while you are there. You should also look at the ratio of providers to patients at the facility and at the credentials of the nurses and anesthesiologists who will be caring for you.

Finally, find out if the doctor you are investigating is affiliated with a local hospital. Although it is quite rare that you will need to stay in a facility overnight, you will want to be prepared for the unexpected. Find out where the doctor has admitting privileges and whether or not you feel comfortable with that facility.

Make Sure That You Feel Completely Comfortable

As with nearly everything in life, you will probably end up with a proverbial gut instinct about the doctor you are looking at as well as his or her practice. Much of this instantaneous internal decision-making will come from the impressions you receive as you interact with the breast doctor as well as with his or her practice.

Although reading online reviews, talking to family and friends, checking out a practice’s website and even making a telephone call to the breast doctor’s office can give you a great deal of important information, these tasks will never yield the results that you will gain from making an in-person visit to the office. Make an appointment first, and ask for a time to meet with the breast doctor and some of his or her staff. Many doctors offer free initial consultations or meet-and-greets to help you in your decision-making process. Even if the consultation is not free, you should see it as money that has been well-spent.

When you first step into the office, take note of how you feel about your surroundings. Does the office and parking lot appear clean? Do the front desk, lobby chairs and tables appear modern? Is the space open or crowded? While a somewhat crowded office with outdated colors is not necessarily bad, it may not make you feel comfortable. Above all, you want to feel comfortable enough in the practice that you come back for your follow-up appointments.

In addition, you will want to notice specifically how comfortable you feel with all of the individuals working in the office. Your first impression of the staff will occur when you make a telephone call asking for an appointment. Did someone answer the telephone immediately? How respectful and understanding are the office staff? Did they understand immediately what you needed? Were they able to get you in for an appointment quickly? Most likely, office staff will act the same once you are a patient as they do at your first meeting with them.

Next, you will want to determine how comfortable you feel with the breast doctor and his nurses and medical staff. After all, these will be the people caring for your health. If anything goes wrong or if you have any side effects after your procedure, you will want to feel as if your concerns are heard and that you can get quick help for any physical issues you may face. Ask yourself whether the medical practitioners listened to your concerns and answered your questions thoroughly or whether they blew off your concerns. Did they take plenty of time to meet with you? Did they seem rushed? Did they seem to understand the procedure that they would be doing, and were they able to tell you what you should expect before and after your procedure? While your breast doctor should certainly be highly skilled in your procedure of choice and should have plenty of experience, it is just as important that he or she is kind, compassionate and polite. Your doctor’s bedside manner will have a lot to do with your perceived quality of the procedure as a whole.

If you feel uncomfortable with a particular breast doctor or his or her practice for any reason, you should take that as a sign to move on in your search for the perfect doctor. You may not even know exactly why you do not feel completely comfortable. However, your body and mind often have special ways of letting you know what the best decision is for your body.

Be sure to take plenty of time in your search. It is better to take this extra time now than to have to take time later for revision surgeries or to find out in a few months that you are displeased with your results. Because a breast surgery changes such an important part of who you are, you always want to feel confident in your choice of breast doctor before beginning.

We encourage you to look into DrYoungForever first. We come highly recommended by many past patients, and we are excited about the amazing changes that we have brought to many women’s lives. Our office space in San Antonio is warm and welcoming and gives you the perfect mix of modern looks with home-like comfort.

Even more importantly, our office staff, nurses and breast doctor have years of experience in helping people just like you. Whether you are looking for a breast lift, augmentation or breast reduction, you can choose us knowing that you will end up with great results that will leave you feeling gorgeous in your own skin. Visit DrYoungForever with our highly rated and board-certified breast doctor, Dr. Robert N. Young. Contact us today to schedule your consultation!