Best Rhinoplasty Surgeons
February 13, 2010
Successful rhinoplasty surgeons. Here are my thoughts:
1.The best surgeons do not compete, but rather do the best they can for their patients. Given our competitive society, you would think that in order to become a busy and famous rhinoplasty and facial plastic surgeon you have to compete with your neighboring surgeons. Having met dozens of top surgeons personally and having shared many a podium, drinks and dinner with them, I have found that the opposite is actually true. They all share one striking quality when you meet them: they are remarkably selfless. Indeed, when asked to what they attribute their great success, they all reply with some variation of, “Well, I’m just very fortunate and lucky.” Anyone who does complex primary rhinoplasty and revision rhinoplasty knows that this is actually very far from the truth. Rhinoplasty surgery is so difficult and predictable results so hard to master, that no one can consider himself a master without having done at least 1000 of rhinoplasties and revision rhinoplasties, learning from their mistakes along the way. This pain-staking process of learning through long-term follow-up requires a dedication to self-discovery and self-criticism for which there is no parallel in any other field that I can think of.
2.The best rhinoplasty surgeons have their own style; they are not all things to all people. I know that the selection of rhinoplasty patients on my website reflects a certain style. I prefer noses that look natural. What this means to me is that I would rather leave a high, straight bridge and a less-pointy tip in my rhinoplasty patients. Of course there are rhinoplasty patients on my website that look more “done”, but usually it is because that is what my patient had wanted based on a one-hour discussion and after photo-imaging. However, if a patient pushes the envelope of “doneness” too far, I try to persuade him/her to back off that outcome. If he/she is insistent, I don’t accept him/her as my patient. Fortunately, most New York patients don’t want that overdone look.
3.The best rhinoplasty surgeons care about each individual patient. The best rhinoplasty surgeons spend more, not less, time with any patient that is having difficulty with their recovery. This difference came into sharp focus for me during my recent trip to Ecuador (See: http://www.newyorkfacialplastics.com/blog/?p=1941 ). I had the pleasure of spending one hour of uninterrupted, up-close and personal time with Dr. Fernando Pedroza of Bogota, Columbia. Dr. Pedroza has single-handedly put Facial Plastic Surgery on the map in South America. Imagine the most famous plastic surgeon of the U.S., double his reputation and surgical volume, and you will come close to getting a picture of Dr. Pedroza’s practice. Dr. Pedroza and I spoke about our rhinoplasty patient consultations and it was startling how similar our methods are in speaking to our rhinoplasty patients for the first time. We both spend an inordinate amount of personal time with our rhinoplasty patients (45 min to one hour), and the rhinoplasty patient spends another 1-2 hours with our staff being further educated before they are asked to schedule surgery. The amount of personal effort that each of us invests is huge, so that our rhinoplasty patients know that we are committed to providing them with as much information as they need to make an educated decision. Dr. Pedroza commands the highest prices in South America and could easily spend less time with his rhinoplasty patients and not have his surgical volume suffer. That he does not is a testament to his commitment to insuring the deepest satisfaction in his rhinoplasty patients.
4.The best rhinoplasty surgeons educate others to their philosophies, approaches and techniques. One of the things that distinguishes surgical education from other forms of intellectual capital is that we surgeons give away our intellectual capital for nothing. The more famous the rhinoplasty surgeon, the more he teaches others his rhinoplasty techniques and publishes them in books and professional journals, expanding the knowledge base for everyone to share in. It astounds me how much this point is overlooked by the general public. There are numerous rhinoplasty surgeons in most communities who have terrific websites and are good salesmen, but who simply do not participate in the educational process. Most of us who teach, write, and perform research do so to further the knowledge base of rhinoplasty. The best rhinoplasty surgeons even travel around the world to try to further rhinoplasty in other countries. I personally have traveled to Vietnam, Columbia, Turkey, Portugal, Germany, Peru, and Ecuador to educate the local surgical communities in rhinoplasty, all in the last two years.
Knowledge of rhinoplasty alone does not make a top rhinoplasty surgeon. A top rhinoplasty surgeon is someone who derives extraordinary positive energy and focus from caring for his rhinoplasty patients as individuals, and caring for his surgical community without guarantee of fame or personal gain. The core values of the best rhinoplasty surgeon makes him someone that you would want to trust with your face and nose. The best rhinoplasty surgeon never promises perfection, but does promise to do his best using all of his abilities to give you as good a result as you can possibly have. The best rhinoplasty surgeon promises to take care of you in times of fear and uncertainty, getting you through difficult healing periods or unexpected revisions. The best rhinoplasty surgeon understands the leap of faith it takes to choose him as your surgeon, and values his responsibility to you, his patient, above all else.
