ELECTIVE SURGERY: Gallegos Proposes Legislation
Assemblyman Martin Gallegos (D-Baldwin Park) and the Medical Board of California yesterday introduced legislation "aimed at protecting cosmetic surgery patients." Gallegos, chair of the Assembly Health Committee, said, "Plastic surgery has been treated like a simple operation that requires limited safeguards. The reality is these are very real surgical procedures that can have dire consequences." The Los Angeles Times reports that the legislation, which was "prompted in part" by a patient's liposuction-related death in 1997, would "tighten restrictions on doctors who perform plastic surgery in their offices." Gallegos announced his bill at yesterday's meeting of the state Medical Board plastic surgery committee (Hill-Holtzman, 2/5). Click here for previous CHL of elective surgery.
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