Salt Lake City is, by current standards, a relatively small metropolitan area. The city itself has about 180,000 residents and the metro area just over one million. There is a larger geographic statistical area running from Ogden town through Salt Lake City called the Wasatch Front. All of that territory holds just over two million residents.

It remains a small city surrounded by hundreds of square miles of beautiful and rugged territory. That does not mean, however, that the city lacks cosmopolitan features. The University of Utah is headquartered there along with their medical school.

The plastic surgery division of Utah U's medical school has a long and venerable history. It was founded in 1967 by a physician recruited from Florida named Clifford Snyder. According to the school's web site, the plastic surgery department in its early years "developed an international reputation in mandibular distraction, microsurgery, hand reconstruction, treatment of venomous snake bite's."

You won't see that snake bite specialty at just any plastic surgery department in just any med school. You're still in the high desert regardless of the banks, office buildings and churches anchoring Salt Lake City. There's a lot of civic pride in Salt Lake City and while the state is thought of as conservative it is changing with the times; there is a well established group of plastic surgeons in the area.

1.If you opt for a plastic surgery clinic, avoid those that have part-time physicians or management. In the days when there was not much call for breast augmentations or liposuction in Utah, some physicians opened up facilities in other cities as well. Some are still splitting time between Salt Lake City and, for instance, Las Vegas. If the facility is owned or managed by a doctor who is in and out of town it is less likely to be as organized and tightly run than one whose staff is on hand all day, every day.

2.The University of Utah not only has a long-standing plastic surgery department, the school is dedicated to teaching the full range of cosmetic procedures and intends to open up a clinic for just that purpose.

According to their web site, "The Division of Plastic Surgery plans a central facility for cosmetic surgery and body contouring. The resources of the University will be centralized at this facility to provide both preoperative and postoperative care as well as state-of-the-art plastic surgery." Don't think that locally educated plastic surgeons may not have quality training. In fact, the medical school might be a worthy source of referrals, even on an informal basis.