A short conversational YouTube video (Feb 21, 2025) in which Robert Whitfield MD and a host answer viewer questions about why many modern plastic surgeons avoid surgical drains — using the tummy tuck as the focal example. Dr. Whitfield says drains were historically used to remove fluid but are now often unnecessary in standard tummy tucks; he references certification exam content and introduces alternatives to drains.
We've had a lot of viewer questions and a lot of community questions about why no drains. I had no drains. Thank goodness. I didn't have drains when I had implants in 2011. So why no drains?
You know, draining has been around for, you know, a lot of years in surgery, and it's meant to help get fluid out of the space. We'll kind of just shift over to plastic surgery, and we'll use a tummy tuck for an example. So. So tummy tuck was a classic example of where a drain was used. Now, in a regular, standard, straightforward tummy tuck drains are not used. In fact, on my maintenance of certification exam for the American Board of Plastic Surgery, there's questions about why you shouldn't use drains for tummy tucks.
Wow.
So a drainless tummy tuck is a pretty common thing. And they use a suturing technique starting from under the rib cage down, just rows of sutures. So that's called progressive tension sutures. And that just eliminates space. So we'll just use the same thought process of eliminating space. You already have a really efficient lymphatic drainage system. So what we do is collapse the space. And if this is the chest and this is the space, I'll do it on profile. I want to collapse the space down so there's no space for the fluid. Just like in a tummy tuck, they're collapsing the space down to eliminate the space for the fluid to accumulate. When you do that, your body will naturally accommodate and get the fluid out.
