S03E42 THREE PATIENTS THAT REMINDED ME WHY I DO WHAT I DO

There's one reason why I do what I do as a surgeon. Three patients recently reminded me of this.

#thoughtfulplasticsurgery #podcast #plasticsurgery #cosmeticsurgery #boardcertified #plasticsurgeon #beauty #aesthetic #botoxandburpeespodcast @crossfittraining @crossfit #crossfit #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #clean #fitness

Click on your podcast site to listen and subscribe!

S03E42 THREE PATIENTS THAT REMINDED ME WHY I DO WHAT I DO

[00:00:00] Sam Rhee: This podcast is about three patients who recently reminded me why I do what I do. I told myself a long time ago as a surgeon, or maybe someone told me, and I'm forgetting to credit them, that if you do this for praise or recognition or gratitude, you are in it for the wrong reasons.

It's always nice to receive recognition, praise, and gratitude, especially from patients, but it's often fleeting and sometimes completely absent. It's often not intentional. Patients are preoccupied with their own health, outcomes and grappling with personal aspects of their care, and they may not be able to focus on showering their surgeons with applause.

Sometimes patients don't even realize the complexity or the difficulty in which it takes to achieve great results. It's probably even more of an issue for surgeons where their work is hidden inside the body, like a gallbladder removal or hernia repair.

Patients just expect the results and often do not know or care to know how intricate the procedure actually was. In my opinion, as long as you know you achieved a great result, that should suffice as a surgeon.

However, this episode is not about self congratulations. There's another reason why I do what I do. And recently three patients reminded me of this.

Body contouring patients, which include tummy tuck and liposuction patients can be some of the most challenging patients for me. While body contouring procedures are not more technically difficult or complicated than any other surgery, achieving spectacular results instead of average to okay results is never easy.

For me personally as a surgeon, it has taken a number of years to realize that the best results in body contouring are not due to my spectacular surgical skills, although they are amazing. It's by working with patients before surgery to ensure that the results will be as good as they can possibly be.

So what does working with body contouring patients before surgery mean? That means encouraging patients to improve themselves in regards to their fitness, nutrition, health, prior to using plastic surgery to enhance their appearance and figure.

If a patient has already focused on maximizing their health and fitness prior to seeing me, they're perfect candidates and those patients generally do amazingly well.

There are some issues that perfect nutrition and exercise won't address that surgery will. This can be post-pregnancy or it can be a body shape that's been handed down from generation to generations through genetics. But there are also a lot of patients whose focus on surgery is first prior to thinking about improving the state of their own being. I saw and still see a lot of post pandemic patients who have gained 10 pounds, 20 pounds or more through inactivity and they're looking for a quick fix. Or they've gone through a difficult and stressful life situation, which may include medical issues or work related or social issues where they neglected caring for themselves.

And then suddenly they looked in the mirror and they did not like what they saw. When I see these patients, one quick way of trying to understand where they are in life is by asking them if they're happy with their weight. I also use weight and BMI or body mass index as a quick way of evaluating patients.

These aren't really the best or most accurate tools, and I don't care so much about weight or BMI numbers, but what the numbers are doing is helping for me to get at what I really want to know. What is a patient doing to help themselves in regard to their health?

Are they engaged in self care? Are they focusing on their health? Whether it's nutrition, fitness, or stress. If a patient is in a life situation where they can't focus on making their lives better, be it work stress, personal or family issues, then cosmetic surgery is not a help.

It's actually another stress and burden in their lives. Patients will sometimes think because they are stressed out and their body shape has gotten worse, they need to treat themselves with surgery. And that's actually the opposite of what gets someone great results.

I also understand that some patients are seeking a certain aesthetic, or a look, which may involve having a high BMI or where some surgeons will suggest that they gain a significant amount of weight. I find it hard, personally to encourage anyone to become less fit or healthy simply for the sake of aesthetics.

So I saw three patients in the office for the first time, one, two years ago, one a year ago, and one about six months ago. And all three patients were interested in improving their body contours, including their belly, their back, and their love handles.

All three patients when asked, felt that they could do more in their lives when it came to fitness, nutrition, and weight management, and I gently encourage all of them to do what they could in their lives. None of them were significantly overweight or had a BMI over 30, but I told them for best results, and for optimizing their health and working on their fitness and nutrition before a procedure, that that would pay off dividends, not just for the immediate short-term results, but also for the long-term results and their lives in general. All three patients separately contacted me six to nine months after their initial consultation.

All of them had lost at least 10 pounds and one lost 28 pounds since I first saw them. Now, I must admit that one of the reasons I'm talking about this is that for as many patients that I see, it's a little unusual to see three separate patients in this time span do so well for themselves.

I've seen a lot of body contouring patients in my career, and for sure, especially when starting out, if you had the money and I thought I could do your procedure safely, we were good to go. Pushing fitness and health was not a priority, but over time you saw your results as a surgeon. Some patients continued to look amazing, but many others, even if they looked better initially, would look worse over time and then would come back seeking more surgery even as they continued to gain weight.

At some point as a surgeon, you realize that you only have so many operations in you for a lifetime. And every patient is an investment of your time spent operating even more so than the money. It's frustrating when you realize the time that you've spent operating on someone has resulted in little to no significant lasting change at all other than padding your own wallet.

For these three patients, they had the determination and discipline to find ways to change and improve their lives. All of them exercised more. One started exercising for the first time, and all of them focused on their nutrition. One even quit a 15 year half pack a day smoking habit.

After these three patients came back and were ready, one underwent a mini tummy tuck and liposuction. One underwent just full liposuction 360, and another patient underwent liposuction 360 and a gluteal fat transfer. All three patients now look and feel amazingly transformed, especially compared to when they first started thinking about cosmetic surgery. It wasn't easy for any of them. It took months to years for them to work through this process of improving themselves.

All of them have different habits and ways of living. They all pushed themselves with some encouragement from me and my staff, and their results are so spectacular that they're so much better than what they would've had, had they just shown up and if I had just operated on them.

I tried to see what these three patients had in common so that I could share the characteristics of what made them so successful. And so far, I can't find anything in common about them that makes them unique. All of them had different personalities, different backgrounds, different ages, different life situations.

About the only thing they had in common is that they were all financially stable, which is already a prerequisite in order to afford cosmetic surgery.

I wish I could say I saw something in their eyes that was different from other patients, but I can't. So I believe that anyone can find success in terms of improving their life and body. You can find determination and perseverance in anyone. The only thing that they did differently was to decide they wanted to do something for themselves and they stuck with it.

So to circle back around, if you ask me why I do what I do, this is the why. It is to be able to make substantial and lasting positive changes in my patients. That's been my why ever since I started in plastic surgery as a pediatric plastic surgeon, and it's still my why as a cosmetic plastic surgeon.

I'm so glad that these three patients reinforced and validated why I do what I do. I'm inspired by them. It wasn't easy for them, but they made substantial changes in their lives for the better, and I was thrilled that I could help them in some way. If you've had a similar experience or you're struggling to make a positive change in your life, let me know.

DM me @BotoxAndBurpeesPodcast on Instagram. Thank you.