Patient's Satisfaction and the Recovery Process

It is very common practice that patients begin to assess their results just right after surgery. Even though they are told by their plastic surgeon to avoid trying to make any early assessment of the results in the phase of swelling, bruising and lack of any implant/tissue settling. Thus springs questions (and sometimes endless and persistent from some patients) in the office, by e-mail or on the phone about ‘concerns’ that they have. Many plastic surgeons and their staff often find some of these questions most certainly redundant, occasionally annoying and in some instances frustrating. For the vast majority of these questions, the answers are almost always going to be along the line of ‘this is normal at this point’ or  ‘you need to wait and give it more time to heal’. In most cases these answers are reassuring but in some instances patients may find such replies patronizing, dismissive and sometimes even evasive.

These diametric viewpoints in the plastic surgeon-patient relationship are fully understandable as their experience and knowledge levels about the procedure are quite different. Plastic surgeons have seen and done the operation(s) hundreds of times, but the patient has likely never experienced it before. Thus the contrast between commonality and anxiety is born.

Or to put it more simply- Patients See Things in Their Recovery and Worry That Something Is Wrong, The Doctor Often Sees These Events as Normal and Is Thankful that Things Are Going So Well’