Did you know that almost any doctor in this country can call him/herself a cosmetic surgeon -and start operating- even if that person was not a surgeon before?

Sharlene McLaughlin wasn't aware of that. She also wasn't that interested in liposuction until her doctor convinced her she should try it: “Every time I’d go to see him it was always, this was the opening dialogue, you know, 'Have you considered it? Here’s how it would work.'”

The operation was carried out in her doctor's Calgary office. But the surgeon's behaviour was not what McLaughlin expected.

Wine with surgery

“The valium just kept coming and coming, and then the wine came out,” says McLaughlin. She says even her husband had a glass of wine during the procedure.

Then, a few days later, McLaughlin was on her way to the emergency department. Her abdomen was purple and covered with blisters. She had developed necrotizing fasciitis — flesh-eating disease.

Last year alone, 160,000 Canadians paid for cosmetic surgery. Some, like McLaughlin, regret it. The toxic bacteria that sent her to hospital could have killed her. And, in her case, the condition was preventable. Her doctor, Graham Hunter, had learned to do liposuction by reading about it.

There are no regulations in Canada governing who can — or can't — perform cosmetic surgery. Most procedures are not monitored because they are done in a doctor's office.

Marketplace has learned that medical professionals — often with little or no surgical experience — are tapping into this lucrative field.

We studied websites in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal and found family doctors performing liposuction and dermatologists doing eye tucks.

“Doctors are there to help you. Make you better. You know, you don’t go to have somebody buffalo you into believing that they are more than what they say they are,” McLaughlin said.

Dr. Wayne Perron is a cosmetic surgeon in Calgary. Sharlene McLaughlin says he saved her life. Perron says he's tired of fixing problems from doctors who he says don't have enough skills.

“It’s sort of astounding…that people with absolutely no training are allowed to do these types of procedures. They’re not prevented from doing them.”

Perron has a lot of experience as a plastic surgeon, but any doctor — even those with no surgical training — could run a clinic like his. Unlike in hospitals, doctors in private clinics do not have to meet strict training and competency requirements.

“Surgery is surgery. People die from these procedures. So why would you let somebody who has no training do these procedures?”

A matter of competency

You might expect plastic surgeons like Perron to be upset about other doctors doing cosmetic surgery since they're competing for business. But plastic surgeons say it's a matter of competency: on top of a medical degree, they've gone to school for at least five years of surgical training.

“When there are specialists that have five or six years of training, why would you even consider allowing somebody with no specialty training to do what a specialist does?” Perron asks.

We asked Don Chadsey, the deputy-registrar at the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons, about qualifications: Why do plastic surgeons have to go to school for years and take board-certified exams, while other doctors don’t other doctors have to meet the same requirements when it comes to cosmetic surgery?

“I think the answer is simply that there are other ways to acquire those skills,” said Chadsey.

Marketplace investigated some of the "other ways" doctors are learning cosmetic surgery. More and more are taking weekend workshops on topics like liposuction - workshops that are easy to sign up for.

We called one school, the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, to see how easy it would be to enrol a family doctor from Vancouver in a two-day workshop on facelifts.

The school said it's enough that the doctor is a general practitioner.

“I’m not prepared to say a weekend workshop would be enough. They could learn some of it at a weekend workshop, but it might be that it requires some weekend workshops,” Don Chadsey of the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons said.

Dr. Wayne Perron is unequivocal on the subject: “You can’t learn surgical judgment in a weekend. You can’t learn surgical techniques in two days. You can't.”

It's not just medical doctors taking up cosmetic surgery. It has spread into dentistry, as well. Marketplace found oral surgeons -some with considerable training- doing facelifts and eye jobs in B.C. and Alberta.

'Within their mandate'

We spoke with the president of the Alberta Dental College, Dr. Joey Brown, about oral surgeons doing cosmetic surgery. “They’re doing procedures that are within their mandate,” he told us.

Brown admits there aren't many rules around cosmetic surgery for dental surgeons. “It’s sort of a buyer beware situation, where anybody … can do the procedure."

Eike Kluge is an expert in the area of medical ethics. He notes that while it's legal for family doctors and oral surgeons to perform cosmetic surgery, there should be standards preventing unskilled surgeons from operating:

“You are learning by doing. And learning by doing may be very well and good in the sandbox, but it’s not good when you’re dealing with actual human beings and faces.”

Sharlene McLaughlin wasn't the only one who needed medical attention. Four other women were hospitalized after liposuction by Dr. Graham Hunter.

Hunter declined our request for an interview. (Though we can report that the serious infections prompted the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons to suspend Hunter - for a week.) The College refused to talk to us about the case, citing a privacy policy.

Sharlene McLaughlin settled her case out of court. She can't tell us how much money she received, but says something else would be more valuable:

“Somehow, someway, I guess I’m looking for a miracle: For somebody to really hold him accountable. And it’s just not going to happen.”

Her doctor, Graham Hunter, is not allowed to do liposuction anymore. He's moved on to a different cosmetic procedure: hair transplants.