Plastic Surgery Schools

I have an appointment for a consultation with Case Western Reserve Univ.  School of Medicine/Plastic Surgery in October.  Has anyone here had surgery with them?  Were costs less than with a regular plastic surgeon?    Has anyone else on this website used a School of Medicine/Plastic Surgery to get their lower body lift, brachioplasty, or thighs done?

Locally I could get lower body lift for $15,000 but that is too expensive for me to pay.  Thighs were quoted at around $7000 and brachioplasty I have not gotten an estimate yet.  I considered going to Costa Rica or Mexico but my husband is too frightened by recent violence/kidnappings and said absolutely not.

Any advice from this site would be immensely helpful.

Hi,

I just had my brachio done on July 24th throught the USF program in Tampa, Florida.  The treatment by the staff and the senior resident was excellent.  She did a great job with scar placement.  You can't see the scar at all unless I raise my arms.  The price was $3,600 all invlusive compared with $6,000 and up that I received in a few other places.  I would recommend it if you are on a budget.  The only downside for me was that its two hours away so its quite a drive for my follow up appointments.

How many follow up appointments were necessary and how were they spaced.  I live in Nevada and would have to schedule trips back to Ohio if there are followup appointments required.  I had not considered that--I basically thought once the surgery was done, it was done.  That sounds like a very good price by the way.

Yes, the price was great!

I had the initial consultation, the pre-op interview (about 2 weeks prior to surgery), the day of the surgery, my follw-up appt (1 week later), a 2nd follow-up which was supposed to be 1 week after my first post-opp appt but since I live far away, she scheduled it 2 weeks later.  So a total of 5 visits inlcluding the day of surgery.  This of course is barring any complications.  If you have any of those, they will be more.

Thanks for the information.  I am really looking forward to getting prices pinned down so I can make a decision. 

you're welcome!

Have you looked into any resident training programs in your home state?  You can see a list of Plastics Resident Programs here (http://www.aacplasticsurgery.org/residentresource.html ) you can then contact the individual program to see if they have a reduced cost program.

red

Thank you for the link!  I found the doctor who did my breast reduction on there!  When he quoted me $15,000 for lower body lift 18 months ago, he never mentioned the possibility of a residency program!

I have contacted the hospital for more information.  Again, thank you!

I used a residency program and glad I did.  I was going to go to Mexico as well but decided against it when I ran across the residency programs.  I had post op appointments for the first weeks and then 3 weeks later and my next one will be at 1 month out.  The surgeons and resident were fantastic as well as the after care.  The savings is in the price of the surgeon (usually about 25-50% of standard surgeon fees).  Cost of OR, anesthesia and hospital is the same.  You can read my profile or some of my latest posts to read about it. 

I tried to go to your page to read your profile but I received an error message saying it was "private" and I could not view it.  I am very interested in finding out more about your experiences.

Can you add me as a friend?  Or just send me back an e-mail with more specifics?

Thank you.