Detroit is a city of 900,000 people in the midst of a metro area that is home to almost 5 million residents. The city’s troubled history and loss of population during the last half of the twentieth century is well known. While downtown Detroit has seen an impressive resurgence over the last twenty years, it is still well shy of the population that at one time made it the nation’s fourth largest city.

You can put a lot of miles on your car searching for the right plastic surgeon in the Detroit area. A quick check of web listings for Detroit cosmetic surgeons brings up doctors in Grand Rapids, Troy, Southfield, Birmingham, Clarkston, Roseville and Grosse Point – but not in Detroit. A prominent laser body enhancement organization has outpatient clinics in twelve locations, none of them within Detroit city limits.

Certainly there are breast augmentation and body lift specialists within the suburban commercial services markets. But the best cosmetic surgeon for a breast lift might be north of the city; the tummy tuck expert might be in an outpatient clinic twenty five miles away.

However there is one centralized organization located in Detroit that might help your search for a reliable cosmetic surgeon. Wayne State University has a medical school in Detroit which in turn is affiliated with the Detroit Health Center.

The largest health care provider in southeast Michigan, the Detroit Medical Center operates seven hospitals (Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Receiving Hospital, Harper University Hospital, Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital, Hutzel Hospital, the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan and Sinai-Grace Hospital), two nursing centers and more than 100 outpatient facilities throughout southeast Michigan. The system has more than 3,000 affiliated physicians and serves as the teaching and clinical research site for Wayne State University.

If you search through the Detroit Health Center’s myriad facilities you’ll find a dedicated cosmetic surgery staff at Harper University Hospital; an entire hospital dedicated to women’s health (Hutzel Hospital) and a complete range of surgical and non-surgical cosmetic procedures provided at yet another facility: Sinai-Grace Hospital.

There are many fine cosmetic surgeons in the Detroit area that do their work on an outpatient basis either in their offices or at ambulatory surgery clinics. You’ll want to find a board certified plastic surgeon: one that has staff privileges at a hospital is going to be a thoroughly educated and certified cosmetic surgery specialist. You may not find the doctor that is best for you through the Detroit Health Center, but it’s an excellent centralized resource where you can learn, if nothing else, where the best cosmetic surgery specialists are to be found.

By: Mary Hart