Am I ready for surgery?
Most sites answer this question with a booking link. Here is the actual checklist Dr. Vale runs in his head during a consultation — so you can run it first, at home, for free.
Roughly one consultation in five at this practice ends with a recommendation to wait or not to operate. Every reason falls into one of five categories below.
1. Health
Elective surgery deserves a body ready for it. Well-controlled conditions are usually fine with clearance from your physician; uncontrolled blood pressure, diabetes, or clotting disorders are not. If you haven't seen a doctor in years, do that first — occasionally a pre-op workup finds something more important than the surgery.
2. Weight
Not a judgment — arithmetic. Above a BMI of roughly 33, anesthesia risk rises and contouring results suffer. Moving weight is the other problem: a result sculpted at one weight doesn't survive a 30-pound change in either direction. Six months stable is the honest threshold.
3. Smoking
The hard one. Nicotine constricts the small blood vessels that healing depends on — cigarettes, vapes, patches, and gum all count. The requirement is six weeks clean before surgery and six after, verified by a simple test if there's doubt. No exceptions, because the complication it prevents (tissue death along incisions) is the one that ruins results permanently.
4. Timing
Surgery needs a quiet stretch of calendar: two weeks of real recovery, six weeks before you look and feel fully yourself. A wedding in six weeks is a reason to wait, not to rush. So is a divorce, a job loss, or any season where the surgery is carrying emotional weight it can't hold.
5. Expectations
The best predictor of satisfaction. Surgery changes a feature; it does not change a life, a marriage, or a career. If you want a specific flaw corrected and can describe it in a sentence, you're likely a good candidate. If the goal is someone else's face or a different feeling about yourself, the honest answer is that no operation delivers that.
What it costs to find out
A consultation is $150, credited toward surgery if you proceed. Fees are published for every procedure — rhinoplasty from $9,500, facelift from $14,000, the full list on the procedures page. If the answer is "not yet," you'll leave knowing exactly what needs to change and the fee you paid still counts when you return.
Can I be evaluated before I've hit the six-month stable weight?
Yes — an early consultation sets the plan and the target. Surgery is simply scheduled after the threshold is met.
Does age itself rule anyone out?
Health matters more than age. Dr. Vale operates on healthy patients in their seventies and declines unhealthy ones decades younger.
What if Dr. Vale says no?
You'll get the reasons in plain language and, where it applies, what would change the answer. Patients he declined and later operated on are among his most loyal.