Earlier this month, RealSelf released an article on a controversial practice that is common among plastic surgeons but virtually non-existent among other types of doctors: taking on family members as patients.
While family practitioners and surgeons who are dealing with life-threatening illnesses and conditions have good reason to think twice about caring for their loved ones, Dr. Hochstein has felt more than comfortable operating on the one person he is closest too.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
“Dr. Leonard Hochstein is a board-certified plastic surgeon in Miami whose wife, Lisa, was a cast member of The Real Housewives of Miami (her tagline: “I’m my husband’s best creation”). He says he feels secure in his decision to operate on family because the procedures he’s performing are elective, done only on healthy people, and very rarely go off-course. ‘I certainly can’t speak to what my judgment would be if I were a trauma surgeon or a cancer surgeon, but the surgeries I do are all very simple, and I do them many times a day. It’s not likely there will be any major surprises, but if there are, I’ve seen them and know how to handle them. If I thought someone else could do it better, I would let them.”
As the article also mentions, the fact that the person he is treating has a personal relationship with him doesn’t mean that person gets a pass on all the requirements other patients have to go through.
When Lisa (or anyone close to their surgeon) is having a procedure done, she still has to sign the same liability paperwork, sit in the waiting room, and come for follow-up appointments.
That should be true whether it is a minimally or non-invasive medspa procedure or something more extensive like a breast augmentation or tummy tuck.
“When you start to treat people differently, that’s when mistakes happen,” Dr. Hochstein told RealSelf.