Dr. Franco Migliori: What do successful plastic surgeons have in common?

Name: Prof. Franco Migliori, MD
Location: Genoa, Italy
Website: francomigliori.com

With medical malpractice claims that are 10x the European average and a a growing trend towards unregulated minimally or non-invasive proceedures, plastic surgery in Italy is a competitive market.

Dr Migliori's been an early adopter of new technologies, including the internet, where he's been on the web since 1995, ready for the challenges and opportunities of online marketing.

As a plastic surgeon in Italy, how have you seen the aesthetics market developing? 

Italy has a very competitive cosmetic surgery market due to one of the highest number of board certified plastic surgeons in Europe (more than 1,500) and due to a loosly regulated market, with more than 25,000 so-called "aesthetic surgeons", many of which have much less expertise and skill. Nevertheless, Italian plastic surgery is one of the “top quality” plastic surgery countries, planting its roots back in the centuries with famous names like Branca, Vianeo, Tagliacozzi and Sanvenero-Rosselli, and showing so many contemporary high-level practitioners.

Like most places, the patient types are split into “institutional” (gathering all the pathologies, like traumas, tumors, malformations, burns, etc.) treated mainly in public hospitals and paid by National Health System, and “private practice” (which is mainly aesthetic surgery) performed in private clinics and paid by the patients themselves with no