What’s new in the plastic surgery field? How do you stay ahead of the curve?
There is always something new! The newest exciting trend is the use of stem cells with or without fat grafting. I try to stay up-to-date by attending meetings in Europe and Asia a few times a year. My colleagues there are very creative, and I get to hear about their experiences years before the new treatments are approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.
What sets you apart from other plastic surgeons?
We offer a very wide range of treatments and can therefore customize the treatment to best fit the patient’s goals, budget and time constraints. The biggest difference is probably that we do all of our procedures under “twilight sleep” rather than general anesthesia. This makes it so that the surgery is much less painful, and the patients are up and about immediately after the surgery.
What’s the most interesting or rewarding aspect of your practice?
I love the immediate gratification that we get with some of our procedures. Facial filling can take off 10 years in just a few minutes and is simple, safe and almost totally painless. And, of course, every plastic surgeon will tell you that cleft lip surgery is the most rewarding because of the huge changes that it makes in the baby’s life and future prospects.
What other dynamics have affected the business of plastic surgery?
Like many businesses in Hawai‘i, plastic surgery is a discretionary expense, and so goes up and down with the economy. The tremendous media interest in plastic surgery has also driven growth.
How has plastic surgery changed over the course of your career? What changes do you predict in the coming years?
Every year, we have added on many treatments to supplement what we can do with surgery and now can get good results even without surgery. We have laser treatments that treat skin color and texture changes in addition to tightening the skin. Botox allows us to treat muscle activity, taking away dynamic lines and allowing us to reshape the face by changing the size of the muscles. Fillers and fat grafting have made it much easier for us to address the volume loss that happens as we age, and the fat contains stem cells which we use to rejuvenate the skin. In the future, I predict that we will have the elastic sutures that they use in China to lift and restore elasticity to the tissues with only minimal surgery. I also look forward to a Botox cream and continued improvement in techniques to remove fat without surgery.
