Jaqui Saburido

Jacqui's story is painfully inspiring. As a 20-year old college student back in 1999, she came to the U.S. for a short visit to take some English classes. She was hit be a 19-year old drunk driver. Of the four people in Jacqui's car, two died, two survived. Jacqi, one of the survivers, was pinned under the dashboard of the passanger side and 60% of her body was burned after the engine caught fire and spead to the inside of the car.

Miraculously, she survived.

Jacqui is now living with her father in the U.S., far from her family and friends so she can get the medical attention she needs. She has had 50 surgeries already.

Jacqui's website is: www.helpjacqui.com

There is a link on the home page to a power-point slide show that tells her story and show before and after pictures.

There is also an address where you can send notes of encouragement to Jacqui. It is:

Help Jacqui
P.O. Box 27667
Austin, TX 78755

Jacqui has told her story on Oprah as well as appearing in a state-wide Drunk Driving poster campaign in Austin, TX.

The boy who hit Jacqui is now serving two consecutive 7-year prison sentences for manslaughter. He will get out of prison when he turns 28.

It is a humbling thought to see how quickly a person's whole life can change -- one foolish choice -- and a young girl winds up severely deformed, and a young boy winds up in prison for 14 year. I don't want to take only pity and judgment away with me after having read this story, but to pray for both Jacqui and the drunk driver. Both lives, and the lives of all their family and friends, have been forever changed.

Disability Ministry Education

Two programs have come to my attention. If anyone knows of others, please drop a comment and let me know about them, I would be interested in knowing if there are more programs like this.


Reformed Theological Seminary

Disability Ministry Certificate
Available via correspondence through RTS Virtual Campus

Click here for information specific to the certificate.
There is also a "Disabilities and the Church" PDF file (the link is located on the same page as the link posted above along with the information specific to the certificate).

RTS also has seminaries located in Atlanta, GA; Boca Raton, FL; Charlotte, NC; Jackson, MS; Orlando, FL; and Washington D.C.

Click here for Admissions information.

Program blurb and Course Requirements:
here is an immediate and significant need for evangelism, edification and leadership training for those who have significant physical, mental, and sensory disabilities. People with such weakness are an indispensable part of the church. The Certificate for Disability Ministry is an instructional program for effective practical ministry with a thoroughly biblical theological foundation.

COURSE	INSTRUCTOR	CREDIT HOURS
Systematic Theology I	Dr. Douglas Kelly	3
Pauline Epistles	Dr. Knox Chamblin	4
Pastoral and Social Ethics	Dr. Harold O. J. Brown	3
Disabilities and the Church	Dr. Andrew Peterson	2
History of Missions	Samuel H. Larsen	3
		TOTAL 15

Johnson Bible College

Disability Ministry (undergraduate Minor). Click here for details.
Click here to view the PDF file of the 2004-2006 Course Catalog.
Page 58 & 59 of the catalog outline the Disability Ministry courses.
Click here for Admissions information.

I have been given information that the Disability Ministry courses will be available via correspondence course format in January 2006. You will want to contact an admissions advisor for more information.

Course Blurb:

Do you enjoy helping those with special needs? If working with the mentally and physically handicapped is a gift of yours, then we encourage you to check out our Disability Ministry Program.

Our Disability Ministry program is designed to help you better understand the needs of the disabled and develop skills which will help to incorporate them into the life of the church. You will also learn the "ins" and "outs" of the services provided to those with disabilities by federal, state, and local agencies.

Along with a specialty in disability ministry, you will receive a bachelor's degree in Bible.

Paul's Face

...the Apostle Paul, that is.

Every year, Pastor John Piper writes a series of narrative poems and reads them during the Sunday services of the Advent season. He takes a familiar character from Scripture and adds a fictional element to flesh out the deeper life of what that person might have been going through.

This year, he chose the Apostle Paul and speculated over what Paul's life would be like had the "thorn in his flesh" been a deformed face. We do not know what Paul's thorn was, Scripture is not clear. Many pastors and scholars have speculated through the years that it could be blindness or a speech inpediment. Having never heard the theory of a deformed face, and having a deformed face myself, I was very intrigued by the idea that perhaps even the Apostle Paul and I could relate on some level. Whether or not he truly did or did not have a deformed face isn't the point -- the poem is an enjoyable read.

You can read the poems or listen to them via an MP3 download on your computer here:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Rosemarie Siggins

Rosemarie Siggins, who the media has dubbed, "The Woman With Half a Body" has an extraordinary story. She was born with legs but shortly after birth had them both amputated due to the onset of a rare genetic condition.

Rosemarie's story is one of those jaw droppers -- and not because she doesn't have legs. She is amazing because she is happy, well-adjusted and lives a life more completely normal than those who can boast of being "completely normal."

She is married, works a job, drives a car, even had a baby. Nothing seems to stop her. Her story is inspiring and so is her personality.

The last link (below) gives a more recent update, including information that Rosemarie and her husband Dave are expecting their second child in January!

Here are some links to some stories about Rosemarie.

The Woman With Half a Body
Rosemaire Siggins
Jeffery R. Werner's Page

Vicki's Story, Part Eight

Click here to read Part One
Click here to read Part Two
Click here to read Part Three
Click here to read Part Four
Click here to read Part Five
Click here to read Part Six
Click here to read Part Seven

Part Eight

At this point, I was half way through sixth grade and I already felt like I was forty years old. I sat at my desk, surrounded by eleven-year olds, feeling like I’d been here before many times already…decades ago…reliving my youth over and over again like some desperate character in some ironic Greek myth. I didn’t feel wise beyond my years by any means…just tired.

One afternoon, the teacher passed out our Weekly Readers and we took turns reading aloud, one paragraph at a time – voices winding up and down the rows of desks like a rattlesnake about to strike. This was a situation of complete safety. While some of my classmates struggled to read well aloud, I loved to read. I counted ahead and figured out which paragraph I was to read and scoured it for the bigger words. I practiced it in my head several time. However, when it came to my turn, instead of asking me to read, the teacher asked me to answer some poignant questions about the material we had just read.

I, of course, couldn’t answer any of them because I had been too busy practicing my paragraph to be paying attention to what anyone else had been reading. I admitted defeat which resulted in the all-too-familiar gales of laughter from my merciless classmates, who just seconds before my reproof had themselves been sweating their way through the exercise, mispronouncing words as simplex as “cereal.”

Angela, the smartest girl in the class, was sitting behind me. Stripped of my reading privileges, my thoughts retreated deep into another world as Angela flawlessly read through my paragraph.

I relived the moment of humiliation over and over again in my head as Angela droned on, citing boring, useless facts about the rock badger. Only one word came to comfort me as their laughter echoed in my head, “reality…” This life of mine, it was just reality. Face it.

I wrote “REALITY” vertically down the side margin of my weekly reader in big, block letters. I had never written a poem in my life, unless you counted that Haiku incident in second grade, but that was all done under duress, so it hardly counted.

From out of the “R” I penciled in, “Roses are not always read.” I was intrigued by my own cleverness to pun the word red, which is probably the only reason I bothered to go on. Almost without any thought, I scribbled out phrases after each of the remaining letters until I had a poem scrawled all over the back of my Weekly Reader.

R Roses are not always read
E Even beauty has thorns in its bed
A Always look at every side
L Look in deeper, see the pride
I In your heart you’ll find the key
T Try to change it, you will see
Y You cannot change reality

Okay, so it was dripping with irony and self-pity, but it wasn’t too bad for an eleven year old. What I realized then and there wasn’t necessarily that I had the ability to write poetry, but that poetry had the ability to break the spell of self-pity. Because I was able to articulate my hurt, the hurt went away. I know all of life isn’t this simple. But at eleven years old, I felt empowered. If I could write a poem about how I was feeling, then I must be feeling something very normal. If it wasn’t normal, it wouldn’t have words. As long as it had words, it meant that it was real, and if it was real, then I was real and all the lies about my not belonging on the planet and not fitting in and no one loving me couldn’t really be true.

I was so pleased over my new discovery, and a poem to read to my mom on the drive home from school that I didn’t even fight back when Brian, my arch-nemesis, tripped me on my way out the door. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and just kept walking towards the door, the Weekly Reader proudly tucked under my arm.

“Icky Vicki! Icky Vicki!” He called down the hall after me.

“Icky Vicki….that’s really original!” I yelled back, suddenly realizing how uncreative the taunt really was.

Then, it was that very moment, the poet in me rose up and took the baton. The frightened, insecure girl that had once been holding onto it so tightly, relinquished her burden. It was the poet’s turn now. Self-confidence spread all over my body as I sat in the parking lot in mom’s car reading my poem to her, her face beaming with a blinding smile.

It was a whole new ball game now. Poor Brian…he never stood a chance after that. Yes, Brian, as he was very soon to find out, would have to watch his step from now on….especially if his shoelaces happened to be untied. Ah yes, Brian’s shoelaces…but that’s another story entirely…

The Right Use of Serious Illness

Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher and theologian (1623-1662) was plagued with much suffering and poor health for the duration of his short life. Before his death at the age of thirty-nine, he wrote a lengthy prayer entitled, "The Right Use of Serious Illness." Here is a short excerpt from that prayer.

O Lord, whose spirit is so good and gracious in all things, and who art so merciful that not only the prosperities, but also the distresses which happen to Thine elect are the effects of Thy mercy, grant me grace not to act like a heathen in the state to which Thy justice has brought me; but that, like a true Christian, I may acknowledge Thee for my Father and my God, in whatsoever circumstances I am placed...

Thou gavest me health to be spent in serving Thee; and I perverted it to a use altogether profane. Now Thou hast sent me a sickness for my correction: O suffer me not to use this likewise to provoke Thee by my impatience. If my heart has been filled with the love of the world, while I was in possession of strength, destroy my vigor to promote my salvation...

O Lord, as at the instant of death I shall find myself separated from the world, stripped of all things, and standing alone in Thy presence, to answer to Thy justice for all the movements of my heart; grant that I may consider myself, in this disease, as in kind of death, separated from the world, stripped of all the objects of my affections, placed alone in Thy presence, to implore of Thy mercy the conversion of my heart; and that thus I may enjoy great consolation in knowing that Thou art now sending me a sort of death, for the display of Thy mercy, before Thou sendest me death in reality, for the display of Thy justice.

...Grant me grace, O Lord, to join Thy consolations to my sufferings, that I may suffer like a Christian. I pray not to be exempted from pain...but I pray that I may not be abandoned to the pains of nature without the comforts of Thy Spirit. Grant, O Lord, that...I may conform myself to Thy will; and that being sick as I now am, I may glorify Thee in my sufferings...Unite me to Thyself, fill me Thyself, and with Thy Holy Spirit. So that, being filled by Thee, it may be no longer I who live or suffer, but Thou, O my Saviour, who livest and sufferest in me; that having thus been a small partaker of Thy sufferings, Thou mayest fill me completely with...glory...Amen.

Vicki's Story, Part Seven

Click here to read Part One
Click here to read Part Two
Click here to read Part Three
Click here to read Part Four
Click here to read Part Five
Click here to read Part Six

Part Seven

There I was again, sitting on that uncomfortable wooden chair in the surgeon’s downtown office. He was kneading my face like he was about to make a pie crust out of it. His left hand bracing my forehead, his eyes squinted, his tongue to his nose…pushing, prodding, poking, pulling.

My heart was beating. Surely, those scars were bound to be hard as rocks, as unfaithful as I was at rubbing the steroid cream into it over the past month.

His eyebrow raised.

My heart skipped a beat. It was coming – the lecture. He’s going to know…I’m dead meat! He’s going to know I didn’t use the cream. Oh why, why, why didn’t I just take five minutes a night and use the cream?! Now I was going to get a lecture from the stern doctor and a couple of needles in my nose.

His hand dropped from my forehead and he just glared at me – his eyes squinting. He just looked at me, his eyes boring more holes into my head than his scalpel had. I gulped and looked shyly at my lap. He breathed deeply through his nose and looked sternly at my mother. She smiled sweetly, not at all betraying the tearful confession she had heard from me on the car ride over to the office.

“Mrs. Anderson…” the doctor said sternly, “What exactly have you done here?”

“I…well…” mom was perplexed.

I felt bad…why should mom be blamed for my disobedience?

“I have never seen anything like this in all my years of medical practice!” he grunted.

Wow, as if I didn’t feel lousy enough! Now he’s gotta rub it in by making me the worst patient in medical history. Why didn’t I just use that blasted cream like I was supposed to!

The doctor got up without another word and left the office.

I looked at mom with wide eyes. Neither said a word, we both knew what was coming. I tried not to let the mental picture solidify – the stern doctor returning to the office with a Western gunslinger’s holster strapped around his white lab coat – two shiny hypodermic needles the size of shotguns hanging from each holster.

I could hear the doctor’s footsteps coming back towards the door. My heart nearly stopped. I took a deep breath and looked down at my lap. The knob twisted, “Oh God please…help me…help me…” I prayed – my mind screaming.

The doctor entered the room, with his nurse in tow. I looked all over, trying to see where he’d hid the shots.

“Look at this, Sally!” He said, pointing towards me as if I was standing in a fugitive lineup.

I was humiliated – not content to chew me out privately, he needed an audience to witness my fear and humiliation.

The nurse touched my nose, and then again. “Oh my…” she gasped, looking to the doctor.

“Mrs. Anderson,” the doctor continued, “I have never felt scars this soft in all my years of medical practice. What exactly did you do?”

My mind went blank. It was a surreal moment. I had experienced miracles before – God being merciful to me in impossible situations, but this time was a time I deserved no mercy. I had not done what I was told. I should have faced the consequences of neglecting the steroid cream. I blatantly didn’t use it, and God, for some unknown reason to me, still chose to flood me with mercy and rescue me from the needles.

I never had to have the shots. Even though every patient prior to me had to have them in order to proceed with the surgeries, I did not. God softened those scars. Somehow, the very healing hand of the Great Physician had stretched down to earth and touched my nose and softened those scars beyond what was humanely possible.

God proved himself to me that day and I also learned something about my own nature. I had always thought before that God delivered me because I deserved it. In this situation, I knew I didn’t deserve his mercy, but he saved me anyway. Sort of the same way he deals with our sin – we don’t deserve his mercy, but he saves us anyway. It’s not about our merit, it is about his faithfulness and his glory.

I had managed to dodge the needles in the face…but only for a time. There was to be another appointment – a visit to the ophthalmologist where I would not be so lucky…

First Face Transplant

The BBC is reporting the first face transplant has occured in France.


Excerpt from the article:
The woman had lost her nose, lips and chin after being savaged by a dog. In the controversial operation, tissues, muscles, arteries and veins were taken from a brain-dead donor and attached to the patient's lower face. Doctors stress the woman will not look like her donor, but nor will she look like she did before the attack - instead she will have a "hybrid" face.


Here is CNN's report

Here is MSNBC's report
(Includes some drawings)

Here is New Scientist's report

Here is Yahoo News' report
(Discusses ethical concerns of procedure)

Vicki's Story, Part Six

Click here to read Part One
Click here to read Part Two
Click here to read Part Three
Click here to read Part Four
Click here to read Part Five


Part Six

The most bittersweet day of my entire childhood was the day my mom and I drove downtown to my doctor’s office to get the dreaded buttons removed. I was thrilled to be rid of the big, ugly, tight uncomfortable things, but dreading it also as it would be the first in-office procedure I had ever had done….without anesthesia.

It’s one thing to boast of never crying when they knock you out cold every time they touch you. Now would be the test – could I get these buttons pulled out of my face without losing my cool? I was determined – no matter how painful it was – I was not going to cry!

And so there I was in that wooden-chair infested office, flat on my back, holding my mom’s hand. I didn’t say a word. After all, denying pain when someone has their fist all the way up your nose takes a lot of concentration.

The doctor shoved an extremely cold pair of pliers up my nose – farther than I imagined possible. His teeth clenched, both hands gripped around the handles, he pushed on the wire cutters with all his might. I heard a loud snap from within my nose and the wire cutters slid out. My eyes were closed. The doctor announced that he would now remove the buttons. I braced the pending pain by gripping my mom’s hand hard enough to sever it from her wrist.

The doctor put his hand down on my forehead, bearing down his weight on my head to keep it still. With his other hand he pulled the blood-clotted, mangled wire. He threw his arm back and ripped the wire out with the force of a rip cord out of a lawnmower.

Searing pain – like shots of fire – ran through my nose and down into my jaw. Rebracing his free hand on my forehead he pulled again. Hot streaks of pain shot up into my eyes, filling every ounce of my head with shooting pain. “I won’t cry…I won’t cry…” I thought as I gripped mom’s hand even tighter. I took a deep breath as the doctor ripped the wire over and over again, like a sadistic clown pulling his never-ending train of wire hankys from out of my eye sockets.

At last, he was finished. It was done. My body filled with a warm joy. Certainly this is the way an athlete feels after a game-winning touchdown or a soldier limping up to receive his purple heart in front of cheering peers. I always felt a physical feeling of overwhelming triumph whenever I survived a painful ordeal without tears. I couldn’t control anything happening to me. I had no choices, no options. But I could choose to not cry – I could control one thing at least.

“Do you want to keep your buttons for posterity sake?” The nurse chirped happily.

“Are you crazy? No! Of course I don’t want them!” I spat. I used to get toys and lollipops when I had to endure pain in doctor’s offices and this woman had the nerve to offer me my buttons. I didn’t save them, but now I wish I had. I didn’t realize at the time what trophies those things truly were.

I jumped off the table, smiling. I looked over at mom, she smiled back, rubbing the blood out of the hand I had practically torn off during the ordeal. I walked over to the mirror and examined my new face. My eyes were pretty swollen. Soft pink circles now book-ended my nose the way the buttons used to. I didn’t even care. They buttons had come off just in time. School pictures were two weeks away. The pink circles would be long gone by then.

I was so distracted by the mirror’s new reflection that I had primarily been ignoring my doctor’s chatter. Usual nonsense – make another appointment….fill this prescription…get this special cream….have Vicki rub the cream into the button sores three times a day…

And then my heart sank. “The cream will soften the scar tissue,” the doctor droned on. “We can’t do more surgery until the scars have softened. The cream never works, but we’ll try it for now. Next time she comes in we’ll start the steroid injections.”

“Injections?” I said, spinning on my heels to face the doctor. “You mean shots?”

The doctor nodded with no emotion.

“Shots? On my face?”

“Make the appointment for a month from now…” the doctor said turning away from me.

“Please…I don’t want shots on my face…” I said…almost betraying my “no tears” rule.

In a moment of unorthodox sympathy, the doctor turned to me. “I’ll make you a deal. If your scars are soft enough a month from now, I’ll let you keep using the cream instead of the shots. But I must warn you….the cream never works.”

That night, locked alone in the bathroom with the big silver tube of cream in my hand, I put gobs of ointment on my tender, throbbing scars and rubbed until my fingers went numb. “Please God….please God,” the prayer reverberated in my head and I applied more cream to my nose. “God, please don’t make me get shots in my nose,” I begged.

Unfortunately, I was eleven and my discipline ran out shortly after that first night. Before I knew it, my doctor’s appointment was the very next day, and I hadn’t picked up that tube of cream in weeks.

“Oh God, please help me…” I cried as I sat locked in the bathroom the night before that fatal appointment. “Please soften these scars, Jesus….please….”

Vicki's Story - Part Six

Click here to read Part One
Click here to read Part Two
Click here to read Part Three
Click here to read Part Four
Click here to read Part Five


Part Six

The most bittersweet day of my entire childhood was the day my mom and I drove downtown to my doctor’s office to get the dreaded buttons removed. I was thrilled to be rid of the big, ugly, tight uncomfortable things, but dreading it also as it would be the first in-office procedure I had ever had done….without anesthesia.

It’s one thing to boast of never crying when they knock you out cold every time they touch you. Now would be the test – could I get these buttons pulled out of my face without losing my cool? I was determined – no matter how painful it was – I was not going to cry!

And so there I was in that wooden-chair infested office, flat on my back, holding my mom’s hand. I didn’t say a word. After all, denying pain when someone has their fist all the way up your nose takes a lot of concentration.

The doctor shoved an extremely cold pair of pliers up my nose – farther than I imagined possible. His teeth clenched, both hands gripped around the handles, he pushed on the wire cutters with all his might. I heard a loud snap from within my nose and the wire cutters slid out. My eyes were closed. The doctor announced that he would now remove the buttons. I braced the pending pain by gripping my mom’s hand hard enough to sever it from her wrist.

The doctor put his hand down on my forehead, bearing down his weight on my head to keep it still. With his other hand he pulled the blood-clotted, mangled wire. He threw his arm back and ripped the wire out with the force of a rip cord out of a lawnmower.

Searing pain – like shots of fire – ran through my nose and down into my jaw. Rebracing his free hand on my forehead he pulled again. Hot streaks of pain shot up into my eyes, filling every ounce of my head with shooting pain. “I won’t cry…I won’t cry…” I thought as I gripped mom’s hand even tighter. I took a deep breath as the doctor ripped the wire over and over again, like a sadistic clown pulling his never-ending train of wire hankys from out of my eye sockets.

At last, he was finished. It was done. My body filled with a warm joy. Certainly this is the way an athlete feels after a game-winning touchdown or a soldier limping up to receive his purple heart in front of cheering peers. I always felt a physical feeling of overwhelming triumph whenever I survived a painful ordeal without tears. I couldn’t control anything happening to me. I had no choices, no options. But I could choose to not cry – I could control one thing at least.

“Do you want to keep your buttons for posterity sake?” The nurse chirped happily.

“Are you crazy? No! Of course I don’t want them!” I spat. I used to get toys and lollipops when I had to endure pain in doctor’s offices and this woman had the nerve to offer me my buttons. I didn’t save them, but now I wish I had. I didn’t realize at the time what trophies those things truly were.

I jumped off the table, smiling. I looked over at mom, she smiled back, rubbing the blood out of the hand I had practically torn off during the ordeal. I walked over to the mirror and examined my new face. My eyes were pretty swollen. Soft pink circles now book-ended my nose the way the buttons used to. I didn’t even care. They buttons had come off just in time. School pictures were two weeks away. The pink circles would be long gone by then.

I was so distracted by the mirror’s new reflection that I had primarily been ignoring my doctor’s chatter. Usual nonsense – make another appointment….fill this prescription…get this special cream….have Vicki rub the cream into the button sores three times a day…

And then my heart sank. “The cream will soften the scar tissue,” the doctor droned on. “We can’t do more surgery until the scars have softened. The cream never works, but we’ll try it for now. Next time she comes in we’ll start the steroid injections.”

“Injections?” I said, spinning on my heels to face the doctor. “You mean shots?”

The doctor nodded with no emotion.

“Shots? On my face?”

“Make the appointment for a month from now…” the doctor said turning away from me.

“Please…I don’t want shots on my face…” I said…almost betraying my “no tears” rule.

In a moment of unorthodox sympathy, the doctor turned to me. “I’ll make you a deal. If your scars are soft enough a month from now, I’ll let you keep using the cream instead of the shots. But I must warn you….the cream never works.”

That night, locked alone in the bathroom with the big silver tube of cream in my hand, I put gobs of ointment on my tender, throbbing scars and rubbed until my fingers went numb. “Please God….please God,” the prayer reverberated in my head and I applied more cream to my nose. “God, please don’t make me get shots in my nose,” I begged.

Unfortunately, I was eleven and my discipline ran out shortly after that first night. Before I knew it, my doctor’s appointment was the very next day, and I hadn’t picked up that tube of cream in weeks.

“Oh God, please help me…” I cried as I sat locked in the bathroom the night before that fatal appointment. “Please soften these scars, Jesus….please….”

Plastic Surgery Nightmares

I saw a lengthy documentary on television yesterday. It was entitled, “THS Investigates: Plastic Surgery Nightmares.” The show was quick to point out that statistically, most of the nine millions cosmetic operations performed in the United States each year are successful, but that those that are not can usually be avoided.

The conclusion of the program listed several considerations one should evaluate before picking a plastic surgeon and going through with plastic surgery.

1. Research. Many “botched jobs” are due to the impatience of the patient who did not do enough (or any) preliminary research before selecting a surgeon. Once a physician has been selected, locate them on your state’s State Medical Board website and check out their credentials.
2. Awareness. Note that physicians who are licensed are licensed in the general field of surgery. A doctor who is licensed does not mean he is necessary specifically licensed to do cosmetic surgery. This means, any licensed physician in your state is legally permitted to practice procedures for which he has no experience or training (should (s)he wish). They can self-designate their areas of expertise and practice any procedure that they choose. Licensing alone should not be reason enough to trust your selected physician.
3. Board Certification. Again, check the fine print. A surgeon can be legitimately “Board Certified” but not be specifically board certified in cosmetic or plastic surgery. There is a big difference between a Board Certified Plastic Surgeon and a Certified Cosmetic Surgeon. Know the difference before you select your surgeon.
4. Hospital Privileges. If your procedure is going to be done in a physician’s office as opposed to a hospital you will want to verify why. Many times, surgeons who are not board certified in plastic surgery are disallowed from performing surgery in hospitals.
5. Know the Risks. Most surgeries have risks, so carefully think through your motives and the risks and side effects before signing on the dotted line. Don’t make the decision to have irreversible surgery if you are going through an unusually rough or emotional time in your life or as a reactionary step after being criticized. Understand that plastic surgery is many times irreversible.
6. Patience. Don’t rush into the decision. If a physician says you have to wait three weeks before having a procedure done – wait the three weeks. If a physician tells you to wait a year between surgeries – wait the year! Oftentimes, the plastic surgery nightmares are the result of patients directly opposing physician instructions or physicians doing a second procedure before the patient has had enough time to heal from the first one.
7. Use Common Sense. Don't pick a surgeon because he has fancy ads on TV or drives an expensive car. Don't pick the cheapest deal -- you get what you pay for! Also, don't go home with a total stranger who claims they have credentials and have a procedure done on their unsterilized living room couch. I know this sounds crazy - but I am alarmed how many women have done things like this.