Archive for July, 2013

New “kid” in town… Coolsculpting

It appears two practices in Redding have acquired the Coolsculpting technology.  It offers non-surgical ways to reduce excess fat and smooth contours.  It was designed for the “70% of people who would never have surgery (info provided by their sales force)” and allows you to have body contouring without needles and no downtime.  It can work but in the end, you could end up spending a lot more then you would with traditional liposuction under anesthesia.  Assuming the fee for one session (1 hour) is $1200 (as was told to us by the salesman), you would need at least 2 sessions to do your love handles and 2 sessions for your tummy if, like most people, you had a roll above and below your belly button.  That’s $4800 and then you still have to wait and see if you accomplish the results you expected.  And if not, it can be repeated but at what price?  With liposuction, the all inclusive fees for the same areas would run just over $5000.  But your results are ‘guaranteed’ with revisions costing only $145.  Have it on a Friday and you are back to work Monday.  So what is really better?  Time will tell but its doubtful its going to be saving you any money.

Marathon surgery

There are fast surgeons and there are slow surgeons.  Fast surgeons like to think they are super skilled but when their complication rate is higher, it nullifies their speed records.  But slow surgeons can be killers… risks go up considerably when procedures exceed 6 hours.  With proper protection and protocols, 6 hours can safely be exceeded.  But when you get up to 10 hours or more, and worse, sending patients home because it was ‘out patient’, you are no longer looking out for the best interests of your patient and putting your patients health and results at risk for catastrophic outcomes.  I don’t understand why a surgeon would do that but they exist… and obviously do not care.