There IS MORE than just one board certification for plastic surgery.

Board Certified means very simply that a Doctor has met the requirements for a particular specialty, as required for that specific speciality board. In the case of being Board Certified in Plastic Surgery one must meet the requirements of one of the three Boards of Plastic Surgery. It is important to make sure that you understand the term "Board Certified" when associated with a particular doctor. It does not mean he or she is certified in the specialty that he practices. For example, in Hawaii a doctor who is board certified in urology (the specialty for urinary kidney problems) can practice cosmetic surgery. The board certified urologist can say he or she practices plastic surgery and is board certified. However he may have never had more than cursory training in plastic surgery. He may in fact be great at plastic surgery in Hawaii and he is board certified but not in Plastic Surgery.

Is your Hawaii doctor board certified in Plastic
Surgery or some other unrelated specialty?

Most individuals who seek a Hawaii Plastic Surgeons services want a Board Certified Doctor in Plastic Surgery, not urology, or cardiology. So consumers who care about this should be careful to ask the doctor if he is board certified in Plastic Surgery. There are few if any physicians who will tell you they are certified in a specialty when they are not. However if interested you have to have to ask about proper board certification.

Consumers of Plastic Surgery need to ask, but there is no need for suspicion.

If that sounds suspicious and makes you not want to trust doctors, that is not the purpose of this educational information about Hawaii Board Certified Plastic Surgeons. The purpose is simply to educate you so you can make a choice after checking your facts. The more knowledge you have the better off you will be when you pick a Hawaii Plastic Surgeon.

One reason this can be confusing is that these boards developed over many years with many political groups and forces along the way. None of the certifying boards are a branch of the government and they are not under government or state control nor are they federally regulated agencies. In Hawaii, there is a medical board which licenses doctors to practice medicine but there is no branch of government in Hawaii which certifies or regulates a specialty practice like Plastic Surgery. So what you have is several Plastic Surgery Boards which certify doctors in Plastic Surgery and ALL are private organizations.

There are three recognized boards which certify
Plastic Surgeons that we are aware of.

There are three recognized boards which certify plastic surgeons. By "recognized" we mean that Hospitals, Medicare and Medicaid and other goverment and state agencies accept the credentials. These plastic surgery boards may not recognize each other, but understand they can be considered to be competitors, in that they compete for the physicians money to fund them. This is a fact of politics and of business. So like republicans and democrats or like Yahoo and Google or any other political or private corporation these boards compete and try to balance their own interest with the consumers.

Three Plastic Surgery Boards

1. The American Board of Plastic Surgery - this board has the largest number of plastic surgeon members, its affiliated through various arrangements through the American Board Of Medical Specialties which is under a pseudo umbrella company of the American Medical Association. This board was created for Allopathic Physicians.

2. The American Board Of Osteopathic Surgery - certification in Plastic Surgery. This board certifies plastic surgeons but one must be an Osteoopathic Surgeon and have gone through Osteopathic Approved Plastic Surgery Training. It is affilaited with the American Osteopathic Association.

3. The Board of Certification in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery - this board has certified Plastic Surgeons who were either Osteopathic or Allopathic Surgeons. To be certified by this board they must have completed either approved Allopathic or Osteopathic Plastic Surgery Residency training.

It is affliated with the American Association of Physician Specialist. The orginal intent of this board was to accept surgeons from both disciplines because at one point the other two boards would not accept cross training. So the problem was the politics at the time. If the plastic surgeon trained under the Allopathic System and was D.O. he could not get certifed by either board so this board was created. Now it has changed, and only older plastic surgeons are in this board.

 

If you want to dig deeper and know the specific requirements for each board to certify a plastic surgeon we have devoted an entire page in table format.

Board Certified Plastic Surgeons in Hawaii

> Dr. Michael Anthony Pasquale Board Certified Plastic Surgeon in Hawaii
> Dr. Robert Flowers Board Certified Plastic Surgeon in Hawaii
> Dr. Benjamin Chu Board Certified Plastic Surgeon in Hawaii
> Dr. Robert Peterson Board Certified Plastic Surgeon in Hawaii
> Dr. Shim Ching Board Certified Plastic Surgeon in Hawaii