If you’re working out how to choose a plastic surgeon in Farmington Hills, start with two free checks you can run tonight: Confirm the surgeon’s board certification and…
Dr. Michelle Hardaway, M.D., F.A.C.S.
Last Updated: October 20, 2026
This content is for general informational purposes only and should not be taken as medical or other professional advice. Readers should consult a qualified licensed professional for advice about their specific situation. Reading this page does not create a physician-patient relationship. All surgery carries risk, and individual results vary. Seek immediate emergency care for severe or urgent symptoms.
If you’re working out how to choose a plastic surgeon in Farmington Hills, start with two free checks you can run tonight: Confirm the surgeon’s board certification and look up their Michigan license. Then find out where the operation happens, use the consultation to test judgment, and compare your shortlist on the same criteria.
This guide from Aesthetic Plastic Surgery & Laser Center in Farmington Hills walks through those five steps in order. The comparison table in Step 5 and the checklist at the end are yours to take into a consultation.
Prefer to listen? The same guide is on the practice’s podcast, and the video below covers it too.
Search the surgeon’s name in the American Board of Plastic Surgery’s verification tool. You can search by name or by city and distance; you’ll type a short code before results show, and the board doesn’t list a fee. You’re confirming certification by the board that the American Board of Medical Specialties recognizes for plastic surgery.
That certification means the surgeon completed the appropriate training and passed comprehensive written and oral examinations covering all plastic surgery procedures. It’s also voluntary, which is why it’s worth checking instead of assuming.
The American Board of Medical Specialties has 24 member boards, and the American Board of Plastic Surgery is one of them.
None of those boards has “cosmetic surgery” in its name, so titles such as “board certified in cosmetic surgery” don’t describe the same credential, however similar they sound. Plastic surgeon vs. cosmetic surgeon covers the difference in more detail.
A bad sign: “board certified” with no board named. Ask which board it is, then look it up yourself.
Look the physician up on Michigan’s Find / Verify a Licensed Professional or Business page, under Health Professionals, then Medicine or Osteopathic Medicine & Surgery. You’re confirming that the license is active. Certification and licensure come from different bodies, so check both.
Disciplinary history is published separately. Michigan posts disciplinary action reports for health licenses, and they’re worth a look once you’ve confirmed the license.
A bad sign: you can’t find an active Michigan license for a surgeon who operates here.
Plastic surgery can be performed in an accredited hospital, an ambulatory care center or a surgical facility. What separates one setting from another is accreditation, who gives the anesthesia, and whether there’s a plan if you need hospital care. Ask these four questions before you get into the procedure itself:
Accreditation sets standards for equipment, safety, surgeon credentials, and staffing.
It’s also worth asking whether the surgeon has privileges to perform plastic surgery in an accredited hospital.
A bad sign: vague answers to any of the four questions, especially the last one.
By the time you’re in a consultation, you’ve already seen the marketing. What you’re there to assess is judgment: whether the surgeon asks about your medical history and goals, explains the risks plainly, and recommends only what you came in about. Take these questions with you, because consultations move quickly.
A useful consultation spends more time on your history and goals than on the practice. You should leave knowing what the procedure involves, what recovery asks of you, its limits, and what can go wrong.
A bad sign: risks skipped or waved away, or pressure to decide on the day. You’re free to leave without booking anything.
Individual results vary, and no gallery predicts your result. What a gallery can show is whether the surgeon’s sense of a natural-looking result matches yours.
If subtle results matter to you, this article on natural-looking results from conservative plastic surgery covers how to say so at the consultation.
Fill in the table below after each consultation, while it’s fresh, and compare surgeons only once every row is filled in. Comparing from memory weeks apart is where decisions tend to slip, because the most recent consultation feels best simply because it is the most recent.
| What you’re checking | Surgeon 1 | Surgeon 2 | Surgeon 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ABPS certified, confirmed on the ABPS lookup | |||
| Michigan license active, no disciplinary action reported | |||
| Facility, and the organization that accredits it | |||
| Anesthesia provider and their qualifications | |||
| Stated plan if hospital care is needed | |||
| How often they perform your specific procedure | |||
| Risks explained plainly, without being pushed | |||
| Recovery described week by week | |||
| The revision policy stated | |||
| Who you can reach after surgery | |||
| The surgeon performs the operation start to finish | |||
| Gallery shows patients with a starting point like yours | |||
| No pressure to decide on the day |
Rows you can’t fill in are worth noticing. If you leave unable to name the facility, the anesthesia provider, the revision policy, or who you’d call at 2 a.m., ask before you book.
For more questions to bring, the guide on how to tell a real plastic surgeon from a marketing title has seven of them.
A few patterns are worth taking seriously at any step, whatever the price or the convenience. Any one of them is reason enough to slow down, ask more questions and, if the answers don’t satisfy you, book a consultation with another surgeon for a second opinion.
Thinking about injectables instead of surgery? The same checks apply, and this guide to choosing a med spa or a plastic surgeon for Botox and fillers covers that choice.
Print this or keep it on your phone. It follows the five steps in order, so you can tick off the free checks before you contact anyone, the questions during each consultation, and the comparison before you decide. A blank line is a question you still need answered.
Before you contact anyone
At the consultation
Before deciding
Dr. Michelle Hardaway is a board-certified plastic surgeon with over 20 years of experience. She’s certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. You can confirm her certification with the Step 1 lookup and her Michigan license with Step 2, and we’d encourage you to run both.
She was appointed Chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Detroit Receiving Hospital, where she set departmental policy and standards and helped train the next generation of plastic surgeons. She also served as Director of its Burn Center.
Today she remains affiliated with Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital, Henry Ford Providence Southfield Hospital, the Detroit Medical Center Hospitals and Henry Ford St. John Hospital.
Her practice sits on Orchard Lake Road in Farmington Hills and serves patients across Oakland County and Metro Detroit. Every plan is tailored specifically to each patient, and the aim throughout is natural-looking results. You can read more about Dr. Hardaway, meet the team or review patient feedback.
No. Certification by the American Board of Plastic Surgery is a specific credential, and that board is the one the American Board of Medical Specialties recognizes for plastic surgery. No board the American Board of Medical Specialties recognizes has “cosmetic surgery” in its name, so “cosmetic surgeon” doesn’t by itself tell you a surgeon holds that certification.
Search the American Board of Plastic Surgery’s verification tool for certification, then check the surgeon’s Michigan license on the state’s Find / Verify a Licensed Professional or Business page. Michigan also publishes disciplinary action reports for health licenses. These are Steps 1 and 2 above.
There’s no fixed number. Consulting a few surgeons lets you compare them on the same criteria, and the useful signal is whether you leave understanding your options, your risks and the surgeon’s reasoning.
Both halves matter, and neither substitutes for the other. Certification tells you a surgeon completed the training and passed the board’s examinations. The consultation tells you how they practice, how they explain risk and whether they listened.
At this practice, yes. All consultations are paid and appointment-based to ensure dedicated time and a personalized plan. We do not accept insurance.
If Dr. Hardaway is on your list, you can request a consultation in Farmington Hills or call (248) 780-0558. If you’d rather ask a question first, send the Farmington Hills office a message. All consultations are paid and appointment-based to ensure dedicated time and a personalized plan.
You can also review the procedures she performs:
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Read articleBring it to a consultation. All consultations are paid and appointment-based to ensure dedicated time and a personalized plan.
Not ready to book? See patient results or read the blog first.
Dr. Hardaway sees every consultation personally. You will have time to ask what you came to ask.
Prefer to talk now? (248) 780-0558
Submitting a request does not create a physician-patient relationship and does not confirm an appointment. A member of the team will be in touch to arrange one.
