Virginia Society of Plastic Surgeons Initiative to Prevent Inadequately Trained Practitioners from Performing Outpatient Surgery

The Virginia Society of Plastic Surgeons (VASPS) announced its initiative to work with the Virginia Board of Medicine to protect patients from inadequately trained practitioners offering surgery in outpatient offices in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

• In Virginia, a doctor without sufficient training for privileges to perform surgery in a hospital may perform surgery in an outpatient office.
• Ten years ago in Florida a series of deaths in outpatient surgical clinics resulted in strict regulations covering the facility and the doctor. Florida now requires providers performing surgery in outpatient settings to have hospital privileges and American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) board certification to ensure they have the proper training necessary to be safe and effective.
• Recently in Virginia patients have been seriously injured during outpatient cosmetic surgery by doctors without board certification or permission to perform these procedures in hospitals.
• In response to concerns raised by the VASPS, other medical organizations, and national media coverage of the increased danger, the Virginia Board of Medicine created an Ad Hoc Committee on Outpatient Surgery to discuss the issue and make recommendations.
• This committee included surgeons, family practitioners and dermatologists, and recommended a creation of a guidance document on office-based procedures for use during the development of proposed regulations to protect patients from the threat of inadequately trained providers who offer cosmetic and other surgical services in outpatient settings.
• These recommendations will be considered by the Board of Medicine on February 17, 2011. We are asking people to urge the Board of Medicine to adopt the committee’s recommendations and agree to appoint a committee for the purpose of developing specific language for new regulations and a new guidance document intended to protect patients from the potential threat of injury by inadequately trained providers in outpatient settings.

they should contact:


For more information, please contact Lewis T. Ladocsi, President of the Virginia Society of Plastic Surgeons