Search for names
Friends: If you know somebody who has had a similar operation talk to her or him. Caution: every human is special – you can’t 100% conclude from one case to the other.
Doctors: Ask doctors you can rely on why they would send their relatives to a certain plastic surgeon. Trust of colleagues is a reliable parameter. A surgeon who has many patients from the medical community is a good choice – a 20% quota is very good
Nurses: If you know an operating nurse or somebody who knows an operating nurse you have a good chance to get reliable information on the qualifications and work of a certain surgeon.
Hospitals: Ask in a well renowned hospital for the names of their plastic surgeons. Hospitals take care of their reputation.
Caution:
Commissions are not legal according to the laws governing the medical profession – for good reasons: medical referrals should take place because of quality and not for a commission. Nevertheless, there are persons (also non medical professionals) receiving money if they manage to acquire a “client” for an operation. Although commissions are perfectly legal in a free market, in (aesthetic) medicine they prove unseriousness at best.
Internet: Mailing and corresponding is easy in the World Wide Web. But it is the jungle. No legal instance (as f.e. The Chamber of Physicians) checks the content. If you localize any service in the internet your personal check can only start when you may think to have found your ideal. So the research in the internet can only be a beginning, nothing more. Any information you get out from the internet is put there by a paying party which nobody can control. In chat rooms very often there are active not only benevolent fellow human beings, but also anonymous advertisers, commission seekers or intimate foes of individual plastic surgeons. Try to contact them on a personal eye-to-eye basis.
In the yellow pages advertising is comparatively free. Keep also in mind that no magazine has ever checked the qualifications of their paying advertisers when reading glossy ads.