Dr. Stephen C. Nicolaidis
What is his expertise and what makes him stand out?
Specializing in Breast and Body Contouring, Dr. Nicolaidis is one of the few Plastic Surgeons in Quebec to be board-certified in both Canada and the United States. In addition to his private practice at the Contour Clinic, located on Montcalm Street, he also practices Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the CHUM, the French super hospital affiliated with University of Montreal.
In 1986, Vanier College awarded him the Dean’s List for Health Sciences Award. In 1997, McGill University awarded him the prestigious H. Rocke Robertson Award in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. He received a certificate of recognition from the (Breast) Cancer Centre in 2009. In 2016, he was proud to win the Jean-Paul Bossé Award, given to the best professor of Plastic Surgery at the University of Montreal. While he prides himself on the quality of his clinical teaching, he is also committed to the support of his students and the comfort of his patients.
What is his position on breast implants?
Dr. Nicolaidis stopped using all types of breast implants in May 2021. After seeing that any patient could potentially react negatively to these devices, he chose to devote himself to explantation. He is now considered the leading explantation surgeon in Canada, with more than 1,200 procedures performed as of June 2025.
Legal Notice: The opinions expressed on this site regarding breast implants are those of Dr. Nicolaidis and do not necessarily reflect those of his colleagues at the University of Montreal.
In research
Dr. Nicolaidis was interested in understanding why some patients develop breast implant disease (BII) and others do not. In other words, he was interested in risk factors for prevention purposes.
In October 2020, he presented his “Prospective Study of 182 Patients Undergoing Capsulectomy for BII: Three Reasons to Do Capsulectomies for BII Patients” at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Congress as well as in 2021 at the 1st Breast Implant Health Summit.
In early 2021, Dr. Nicolaidis was doing more explant procedures than augmentations. Most concerning, he started to meet patients with no apparent risk factors who still developed BII. Therefore, he could no longer predict if any given patient might develop BII with breast implants.
Unable to predict which women were more at risk for BII, Dr. Nicolaidis made a decision based on caution and medical responsibility: he stopped breast implants altogether in May 2021.
Originally from Montreal, Dr. Stephen C. Nicolaidis is a plastic surgeon who graduated from McGill University, where he completed his training in plastic surgery. He then specialized in craniofacial cosmetic surgery at the University of Miami and then pursued a fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas. He worked for three years in New York City as an assistant professor of surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. During this time, he was named one of America’s Top Surgeons in Plastic Surgery. Following the events of September 11, 2001, Dr. Nicolaidis decided to return to Montreal, where he is currently an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Montreal.
