Late last year, Texas plastic surgeon John Tebbets, MD, introduced the concept of "out to dinner augmentation." It's a breast augmentation procedure that takes less than an hour to perform, and he says women can have it done over their lunch break with 80-85% of patients feeling well enough to go out the same night.

Tebbets says that precise preoperative measurements of a woman's breast skin and tissue and a specially designed scalpel are used in combination to reduce trauma - including bleeding and injury to the surrounding tissue - during a breast enlargement procedure. As well, the surgery can be done under local, rather than general, anesthesia. This means that patients are awake during the procedure, and allows them a shorter initial recovery time.

Critics of this technique worry that a thirty-minute breast enlargement procedure is rushing the job, as well as sending patients speeding toward disaster. They worry that there are not enough safety precautions, and that offering quick cosmetic surgery entices too many patients who haven't really given enough consideration to how they will feel after the surgery, both physically and emotionally.  They also worry that safety precautions are being overlooked.

Despite these worries lunchtime breast-lifts - and other cosmetic procedures - have been on the rise over the last several years, and as technology continues to improve, so will both the number of procedures being performed, and the length of time it takes to complete the work.