Cosmetic Surgery

Your series on cosmetic surgery has been well written and fair to the medical profession. I was, however, sorry to see Drs. George Brennan and Michael Elam depicted as spokesmen for cosmetic surgeons. They were plaintiffs in a suit against the Orange County Medical Assn. five years ago, which has been consistently misrepresented in your newspaper.

The OCMA has long offered a referral service to the public providing names and addresses of physician members by specialty and location. In 1985 referrals were restricted to board-certified members except for general practitioners. The word “board” referred to boards recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties of the AMA. Around 1980 or so, the board which certifies ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialists changed its name to include the words “and Facial Plastic Surgery,” recognizing a change in the training of these doctors. As a member of the board of directors of the OCMA, which was neutral in the cosmetic surgery turf wars, I made a motion to include facial plastic surgery as a specialty designation for those ENT members who wished to receive referrals from the association. It was adopted. We still did not refer breast reconstruction and other non-facial cases to these members.

In 1986, Drs. Brennan and Elam, who were eligible for these facial plastic referrals, and another doctor, who was not certified by any board and not eligible for referrals, sued the OCMA alleging discrimination and demanding recognition for the American Board of Cosmetic Surgery.

The OCMA settled this suit because we could not afford to litigate it and because we found that we were the last county medical society that still required board certification for eligibility to receive referrals. The settlement involved no recognition of the “Board” of Cosmetic Surgery but we did drop our requirement that the physician receiving referrals must be board-certified.

MICHAEL T. KENNEDY MD

Past President, OCMA

Mission Viejo