What ASPS Says About Cosmetic Tourism and Reporting Complications

Updated

The Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), the peak body for specialist plastic surgeons in Australia, treats cosmetic tourism as a patient-safety issue rather than a neutral travel option. On plasticsurgery.org.au, the site provides dedicated information on cosmetic tourism, a channel for reporting complications that arise from surgery performed overseas, and a complaints process for concerns about care. The practical takeaway: if you are considering surgery abroad, ASPS directs you back to accredited Australian specialist plastic surgeons, and if something has already gone wrong after overseas surgery, the site tells you where to report it.

What ASPS says about cosmetic tourism

ASPS frames cosmetic tourism — travelling overseas for cosmetic surgery — within its broader patient-safety and regulation message. The site states that ASPS "understands the many different options patients have when considering plastic surgery," including who to ask for advice, how to select the best surgeon, and what is actually involved to ensure safety. Cosmetic tourism is listed as a distinct topic under the Information For Patients section, alongside guidance on choosing a surgeon, surgical fees, and Medicare and procedure cover.

The core position the site communicates is one of accreditation:

  • Only specialist plastic surgeons are accredited by the Commonwealth Government of Australia, through the Australian Medical Council, to perform all reconstructive and cosmetic surgery.
  • ASPS is described as the peak body for Specialist Plastic Surgeons, both reconstructive and cosmetic.
  • The site's "Find a Surgeon" tool exists to help patients locate an accredited Specialist Plastic Surgeon and give them information to make the decision easier.

In other words, the site does not present cosmetic tourism as an equivalent alternative to surgery in Australia. It points to accreditation and local specialist care as the safety baseline, and it treats overseas surgery as a context where patients need extra caution and a clear reporting path if things go wrong.

Reporting complications from surgical tourism

The site has a specific reporting pathway for problems following overseas surgery. Under Information For Patients, ASPS lists "Cosmetic Tourism" together with "Reporting complications arising from surgical tourism." This means a patient who has had surgery abroad and experienced a complication can use the site to find how to report it, rather than being left without a route.

The reporting topic sits alongside two related resources:

  • Complaints Process — for concerns about care, separate from the tourism-specific reporting channel.
  • Patient Education — general material to help patients understand procedures and decisions.

A useful way to think about the distinction: the cosmetic tourism reporting channel is aimed at complications linked to surgery performed overseas, while the complaints process covers concerns about care more generally. If your situation is a complication after surgery abroad, start with the surgical tourism reporting information; if your concern is about a surgeon or a service in Australia, the complaints process is the relevant route.

Other patient resources on the site

The cosmetic tourism material is part of a wider set of patient-facing resources that ASPS publishes. These include:

Resource What it covers
Find a Surgeon Locating an accredited Specialist Plastic Surgeon
Procedures / Procedure Information Information about specific procedures
Questions for Your Surgeon Prompts to use in a consultation
Surgical Fees Guidance on fees
Medicare and Procedure Cover What Medicare covers
Is Your Surgeon an ASPS Member? Checking membership status
What Does FRACS Mean? Explaining the FRACS qualification
What Does Specialist Plastic Surgeon Mean? Defining the specialist title
What Training Does an ASPS Member Have? Training background of members
Breast Awareness / Breast Implant Registry (BIR) / ABDR Breast device and implant information
BIA-ALCL, BIA-SCC, and other cancers Information on associated cancers
Breast Reconstruction Awareness Information on reconstruction

For anyone weighing overseas surgery, the most relevant pages are Cosmetic Tourism, Reporting complications arising from surgical tourism, Find a Surgeon, and the pages explaining what FRACS and "Specialist Plastic Surgeon" mean — because those define the accreditation standard ASPS uses as its safety reference point.

How to use this information

If you are considering surgery abroad, the site's message is to compare that option against the accreditation standard it describes: surgery by a specialist plastic surgeon accredited through the Australian Medical Council. Use the Find a Surgeon tool and the "Questions for Your Surgeon" page to evaluate a local option before deciding.

If you have already had surgery overseas and have a complication, go to the Information For Patients section and look for the cosmetic tourism reporting information. Use the complaints process if your concern is about care rather than a tourism-related complication.

If you are researching a surgeon in Australia, the site's membership and training pages — "Is Your Surgeon an ASPS Member?", "What Does FRACS Mean?", and "What Training Does an ASPS Member Have?" — let you verify credentials against the standard ASPS describes.

The site also lists contact details, including a phone number (+61 2 9437 9200) and a Contact Us page, for questions that the published resources do not answer.