Today, the Medical Board of California (MBC)
took a major step to protect patients in the
state when it unanimously voted against
allowing members of the American Board
of Cosmetic Surgery (ABCS) to advertise
as “board certified” cosmetic surgeons.
ASPS is proud to have worked in advance
of this vote to educate the MBC
and show that ABCS certifications
are not backed by a level of
training that puts them on par with
American Board of Medical
Specialties (ABMS) member boards.
“This is, frankly, a tremendous relief.
California has a large number
of cosmetic surgery patients and the
most ABCS members of any
state, which means it holds the greatest
potential for those patients
to be misled by advertisements that a
doctor is a ‘board certified
cosmetic surgeon’,” says ASPS
President Alan Matarasso, MD, FACS.
“Today’s ruling means those patients
are less likely to choose a
particular provider because they
were exposed to a confusing ad.
That’s going to make patients safer.
Our specialty owes a huge debt
of gratitude to all the plastic surgeons
who invested their time and talents
to help protect our patients.”
Today’s ruling closes the book on a
two-decades-long story. In 1996,
California law was changed so that
the state’s physicians could only
advertise ABMS certifications, unless
a non-ABMS board was specifically
reviewed and deemed equivalent to
an ABMS member board by the MBC.
ABCS has applied for equivalency
under this process multiple times, and
the MBC has repeatedly found that
ABCS falls short of the state’s standard
that requires their training programs
to be equivalent in scope, content,
and duration to training accredited by
the Accreditation Council for
Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).
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