It is the question almost nobody asks and the one that prevents most trouble. In Peru any doctor can open an aesthetic practice, and some do so without ever having completed the specialty. The difference between a plastic surgeon and a doctor who performs aesthetic procedures is not in the consulting room or the advertising: it is in two public registers you can check yourself.

The two numbers that matter

You will often see the letters CMP followed by a number. That is the registration number of the Colegio Médico del Perú, and it certifies one thing only: that this person is a doctor and is licensed to practise. It says nothing about their specialty.

The one that does is the RNE, the National Register of Specialists. A doctor appears on it once they have completed a residency programme and the specialty has been formally recognised. What you are looking for is registration as a plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgeon.

A professional with a CMP but no RNE in that specialty is a doctor, and may be an excellent one. They are not a plastic surgeon.

How to check

  1. Ask for the full name and the CMP number. By telephone, by WhatsApp or in the consultation itself, and it is a normal question. If it causes discomfort, you have already learned something.
  2. Look that name up in the Colegio Médico del Perú register, which is public and free. Check the number matches and that they are listed as licensed.
  3. Look at the registered specialty. That is where plastic surgery must appear, not "general medicine" or a different specialty.
  4. Check where the surgery will take place. The professional may be in order and the venue not. Surgery under general anaesthesia or sedation takes place in a licensed facility, with an anaesthetist and resuscitation equipment. Not in a consulting room.

The two questions are: who is operating, and where. Serious complications of cosmetic surgery in Peru almost always fail on one of the two.

Signs worth not ignoring

  • They do not tell you who will be operating. In some centres the consultation is given by an adviser and the surgeon appears on the day. You should know the name beforehand.
  • A quotation with an expiry date. "This price is only until Friday" is a sales technique applied to a medical decision.
  • No risk is mentioned. Every operation has them. Their absence from the conversation does not mean they do not exist; it means you were not told.
  • There is no written informed consent, or you sign it on the day of surgery without having read it beforehand.
  • Major surgery in a consulting room. A liposuction or an abdominoplasty are not performed outside a licensed surgical facility, however tempting the price.

Our numbers

Dr. Fátima García's are CMP 62804 and RNE 33190, and they are in plain sight in the footer precisely so that you can carry out this check. Check them. And do the same with any other professional you are considering, including the ones you were recommended.

Checking is not distrust. It is what is called for before somebody puts you to sleep.

Temas: certified plastic surgeon Peru Colegio Medico del Peru RNE register verify plastic surgeon Lima patient safety

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