| Verified against primary record | |
| National regulatory review | Independent review of the regulation of medical practitioners who perform cosmetic surgery, findings handed down 1 September 2022[1] |
|---|---|
| Recommendations | 16, accepted in full by the regulator and the Medical Board[1] |
| Central finding on training | There are no universal minimum standards for education and training in relation to cosmetic surgery[1] |
| Finding on oversight | The industry largely sits outside existing health systems and frameworks that offer safeguards to the public[1] |
| Finding on reporting | Significant under-reporting of safety issues in the sector[1] |
| Medical tourism in the review | Not mentioned; overseas procedures and Australians travelling abroad do not appear[1] |
| Independently reported | |
| Destinations named by the surgeons’ professional body | Turkey, Thailand and Brazil[2] |
| Advertising asymmetry it identifies | Australian specialist plastic surgeons are subject to regulator advertising guidelines; overseas surgeons face no comparable restrictions[2] |
| Figures in that statement | None; it quantifies nothing[2] |
| Bands apply only to the rows beneath them. No Australian count of residents travelling abroad for treatment, no complication count on return, and no cost to the health system was located in any source. The professional body statement contains no numbers at all, and it is a body of Australian surgeons whose members perform the domestic alternative, which is disclosed here though the statement itself does not disclose it. No typical cost range is given. | |
Medical tourism in Australia is discussed almost entirely as an outbound problem, chiefly cosmetic surgery abroad. The striking feature of the record is a mismatch: Australia conducted a major independent review of cosmetic surgery regulation, delivered in September 2022 with 16 recommendations accepted in full, and that review says nothing about patients going overseas, while the surgeons’ professional body says the risk is precisely offshore and offers no figures to size it.
The regulatory review
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and the Medical Board of Australia commissioned an independent review of the regulation of medical practitioners who perform cosmetic surgery in November 2021. Its findings were handed down on 1 September 2022. The independent reviewer was Andrew Brown, a former Queensland Health Ombudsman, supported by an expert panel of Conjoint Professor Anne Duggan, Alan Kirkland of the consumer organisation CHOICE, and Richelle McCausland, the National Health Practitioner Ombudsman.[1]
The review made 16 recommendations, covering an endorsement model setting minimum training standards for doctors performing cosmetic surgery, better management of cosmetic surgery notifications, an education campaign to address under-reporting of safety issues, stronger advertising guidelines and enforcement including on social media, and clearer practice guidelines on pre-operative screening, informed consent and post-operative care. The regulator and the Medical Board accepted the recommendations in full.[1]
Two findings are worth quoting because they bear directly on medical travel. The review found that there are no universal minimum standards for education and training in relation to cosmetic surgery, and that the sector operates with the industry largely sitting outside existing health systems and frameworks that offer safeguards to the public. It also found significant under-reporting of safety issues in the sector, and noted that consumers must sift through a plethora of advertising and marketing material.[1]
Those findings describe Australian domestic practice, not practice abroad, and that is the point. A wealthy country with a mature health regulator examined its own cosmetic surgery sector and concluded that training standards were absent, oversight was thin and safety problems went unreported. Any comparison between domestic and overseas cosmetic surgery has to start from that baseline rather than from an assumption that the domestic sector was well governed.
The review’s published findings contain no reference to cosmetic surgery performed overseas, to medical tourism, or to Australians travelling abroad for procedures.[1]
What the profession says
The Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons issued a statement on cosmetic tourism in January 2024. It names Turkey, Thailand and Brazil as destinations, and lists the procedures involved as dental implants, buttock lifts, breast augmentation, liposuction, facelifts, tummy tucks, eyelid surgery and nose reshaping. It identifies risks including infection and bleeding after surgery, longer hospital stays and possible transfer to a more intensive hospital at the patient’s cost, unsatisfactory results, general health risks, and difficulty accessing the operating surgeon or facility for follow-up after returning to Australia.[2]
On regulation it makes a precise and verifiable point: Australian specialist plastic surgeons are subject to the national regulator’s advertising guidelines, while overseas surgeons face no comparable advertising restrictions. It also states that overseas surgical qualifications, facility accreditation and device standards may not consistently meet Australian standards, and records the society’s concern that private hospitals restricting cosmetic surgery theatre access may push Australians overseas. It recommends against pursuing overseas cosmetic surgery tourism and against combining surgery with a holiday, and advises planning post-operative care and follow-up in advance.[2]
The statement contains no numbers of any kind. It gives no count of Australians travelling overseas, no complication rate, no figure for complications treated on return and no estimate of cost to the health system, and while it says cosmetic tourism has experienced a rapid surge in growth it does not quantify that either.[2]
The advertising asymmetry is the strongest argument in the statement and does not depend on figures. A domestic surgeon operates under enforceable limits on how surgery may be marketed; an overseas clinic advertising into Australia does not. That is a real regulatory gap, and it is one the September 2022 review addressed only for domestic practitioners.
The body making these points is an association of Australian plastic surgeons, whose members provide the domestic alternative to the travel it advises against. The statement does not disclose that interest. It is noted here not to dismiss the clinical points, which are consistent with the public health guidance below, but because a reader should know who is speaking.
The clinical risk record
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identifies the cosmetic procedures most often sought abroad as abdominoplasty, breast augmentation, buttock augmentation, liposuction and rhinoplasty, and records documented outbreaks including nontuberculous mycobacteria surgical site infections after cosmetic surgery in the Dominican Republic and fungal and carbapenem-resistant infections after procedures in Mexico. It notes that some highly resistant bacteria and fungi including Candida auris appear more common in some countries where patients seek care, and recommends screening for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales after an overnight stay in a foreign healthcare facility within six months.[3]
On flying it advises not flying for 10 days after chest or abdominal surgery and records a recommendation to wait seven to 10 days after laser or cosmetic procedures on the face, eyelids or nose, noting that cabin pressure is roughly equivalent to outside air pressure at 6,000 to 8,000 feet and that travel after surgery raises blood clot risk. It states that accreditation does not guarantee a good outcome.[3]
Those flight intervals matter more for Australia than for most countries in this series. The destinations the professional body names are between roughly nine and twenty hours’ flying from Australian cities, so the recommended waiting periods translate into a substantially longer and more expensive stay than a patient travelling within Europe or North America would face.
Limits of the evidence
No Australian government or statistical agency figure on residents travelling abroad for treatment was located, and no Australian count of complications treated after return. Only the regulator’s published summary of the cosmetic surgery review was read, not the full report, so statements about the review are limited to that summary. Australia is also an inbound destination for patients from the Pacific and Asia and a provider of specialist care under regional arrangements; no figures for that were located and none has been estimated. Nothing in this entry quantifies Australian outbound medical travel, because nothing in the sources does.
See also
- Cosmetic surgery tourism, the activity the Australian debate concerns
- Medical tourism in New Zealand, where the equivalent evidence is about dentistry
- Complication rates in medical tourism, which no Australian source quantifies
- Conflicts of interest in medical tourism research, relevant to a surgeons’ body advising against travel
- Outbound medical tourism, the direction Australia is discussed in
References
- Medical Board of Australia. Review of cosmetic surgery outlines 16 areas to improve patient safety. 1 September 2022. Verified against primary record: the page was opened and the identification of the report as the Independent review of the regulation of medical practitioners who perform cosmetic surgery with its original title noted, its commissioning by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and the Medical Board in November 2021, the handing down of findings on 1 September 2022, the naming of independent reviewer Andrew Brown as a former Queensland Health Ombudsman and of expert panel members Conjoint Professor Anne Duggan, Alan Kirkland of CHOICE and Richelle McCausland the National Health Practitioner Ombudsman, the 16 recommendations covering an endorsement model for minimum training standards, management of cosmetic surgery notifications, an education campaign on under-reporting, stronger advertising guidelines and enforcement including social media, and practice guidelines on pre-operative screening, informed consent and post-operative care, the finding that there are no universal minimum standards for education and training in relation to cosmetic surgery, the finding of the industry largely sitting outside existing health systems and frameworks that offer safeguards to the public, the finding of significant under-reporting of safety issues in the sector, the observation that consumers must sift through a plethora of advertising and marketing material, the acceptance of the recommendations in full, and the complete absence of any reference to overseas procedures, medical tourism or Australians travelling abroad were read directly. Only this published summary was read; the full report was not retrieved. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
- Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons. ASPS statement re cosmetic tourism. January 2024. Independently reported: the statement was opened and the naming of Turkey, Thailand and Brazil as destinations, the listing of dental implants, buttock lifts, breast augmentation, liposuction, facelifts, tummy tucks, eyelid surgery and nose reshaping as procedures, the risks named including infection and bleeding, longer hospital stays and possible transfer to a more intensive hospital at the patient’s cost, unsatisfactory results, general health risks and difficulty accessing the operating surgeon or facility for follow-up after returning to Australia, the point that Australian specialist plastic surgeons are subject to the national regulator’s advertising guidelines while overseas surgeons face no comparable restrictions, the statement that overseas surgical qualifications, facility accreditation and device standards may not consistently meet Australian standards, the concern that private hospitals restricting cosmetic surgery theatre access may push Australians overseas, the recommendations against overseas cosmetic surgery tourism and against combining surgery with a holiday together with the advice to plan post-operative care and follow-up, the unquantified claim of a rapid surge in growth, and the complete absence of any figures including any count of Australians travelling overseas, any complication rate, any figure for complications treated on return and any estimate of cost to the health system were read directly. No individual author is named, and the statement does not disclose the organisation’s interest as a body of Australian surgeons. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
- Stoney, R. J. and Leidel, L. Medical Tourism. CDC Yellow Book: Health Information for International Travel, 2026 edition, United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Page dated 23 April 2025. Independently reported: the chapter was opened and the identification of abdominoplasty, breast augmentation, buttock augmentation, liposuction and rhinoplasty as the cosmetic procedures most often sought, the documented outbreaks of nontuberculous mycobacteria surgical site infections after cosmetic surgery in the Dominican Republic and of fungal meningitis and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales infections after procedures in Mexico, the note that highly resistant bacteria and fungi including Candida auris appear more common in some countries where patients seek care, the recommendation to screen for carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales after an overnight stay in a foreign healthcare facility within six months, the guidance not to fly for 10 days after chest or abdominal surgery, the recommendation to wait seven to 10 days after laser or cosmetic procedures on the face, eyelids or nose, the note that cabin pressure is roughly equivalent to outside air pressure at 6,000 to 8,000 feet and that travel after surgery raises blood clot risk, and the statement that accreditation does not guarantee a good outcome were read directly. Retrieved 23 October 2026.
Sourcing note: the professional body’s statement is reported for its verifiable regulatory point and its clinical risk list, with the absence of any figures in it stated plainly and its unstated interest disclosed. The entry declines to treat the September 2022 review’s domestic findings as a favourable comparison for Australian practice, since the review concluded the opposite. No figure for Australian outbound medical travel appears anywhere here, because no source located contains one.