Thank you for your question.
You've submitted several photos and you state in your question that you've been doing some
research about having double eyelid surgery.
And you believe that you're a good candidate and you're expressing concern about having
this being your first procedure.
And the concern about the doctor doing something that they’re qualified to do.
Well I can certainly give you some guidance on this question on how to choose a doctor.
I'm a board certified cosmetic surgeon and a fellowship trained oculofacial plastic surgeon.
I specialize in complex eyelid surgery revision and otherwise; and practice focused for over
20 years has been on Asian Eyelid Surgery.
So I can certainly comment on how you find somebody who will likely deliver the type
of result that you want.
So I’ll give you some ideas of how – when we see our patients.
We are – our practice is in Manhattan and Long Island and we see patients who come to
us from around the world.
And of course New York City being the diverse city that it is where we have a lot of people
who have a desire for Asian Eyelid Surgery of different Asian backgrounds.
So I could tell you that just as the phases of one’s training and one’s ability to
do a procedure, and how it ultimately aggregates and develops.
You know this is a time in our history where physicians have become, unfortunately, very
adversarial about what is perceived as scarcity and competition inappropriately.
Because ultimately, our job as doctors is to advocate for the patients.
And if you're a good doctor, you'll do well because there’s no shortage of people who
need your services.
Unfortunately certain organized plastic surgery specialties have taken upon themselves to
mislead the public about – in a negative way as opposed to at least, you know, if one’s
going to have a message, be positive and explain what gives you unique qualifications versus
making, unfortunately, inaccurate statements about other doctors which is incredibly unprofessional.
But that’s – bring that aside, the phases of one’s career is when you – when you
train, you train in sometimes a broad area.
And then if you do a fellowship, you train in a specialized area.
Like for myself, I trained first in eye surgery, then I trained in oculofacial plastic surgery.
So that was a specialized, very narrowly focused area to focus on eyelid surgery.
Now that gave me the ability to start.
But then you have options.
You can do all kinds of things with a specialty even though it seems so narrow.
So one of my areas of – to focus on was cosmetic eyelid surgery for Asians.
So over the course of many years, one becomes first more adept at doing the procedures.
And then as time goes on, you put in enough hours, you become very good.
And matching that has to be the artistic eye and the style.
So my point to you is that what you want ultimately in a doctor is you want somebody who is, of
course, well trained.
And don’t use the term board certification as your only guideline because board certification
is basically taking an exam which is fine.
Everyone can take an exam.
But beyond that, what have you done with your life?
I have met many colleagues who may have gotten their board certification in one area, of
general plastic surgery but they focused only on hand surgery.
Now on paper, they can do everything from head to toe.
But what they’re really great at, they’re great at hand surgery.
So that’s – would be the start.
Then you look for – at experience and you're able to gauge that by speaking to the doctor
and speaking to their staff.
A lot of times you get a really good feeling about how much somebody does and how good
they do what they do from just the vibe of the staff.
The staff – it’s very often, like, in our practice, our staff sees patients who
we do Asian Eyelid Surgery for and they really resonate with how happy we make the patients.
And therefore they’re happy to recommend it to people who come.
And then, of course, I think that very importantly is the amount of time a doctor spends with
you communicating.
I can’t stress enough how often I have seen patients who were unhappy with another doctor’s
work where I made the observation that it wasn’t the technical approach that the doctor
took but rather the miscommunication as to desired outcome.
And that is always a problem.
So communicating and spending time and going over details.
With Asian Eyelid Surgery, you have a lot of different decision points at the – in
the tree of decision.
So you decide first, is there extra skin?
Is there – is there extra fat?
Do we base on that?
Do you may do this as an incisional versus a non-incisional?
Based on that, do you want – what kind of crease do you want?
Do you want a parallel crease?
Do you want a nasal tapered crease?
Then the last, of course, this question is, do you need an epicanthoplasty?
Do you want an epicanthoplasty?
So these are the natural decisions you make as you do this.
And what I do is I try to communicate with my patient what I'm thinking and actually
I’ll show them with some type of instrument to show the – what the crease can potentially
look like.
So that way they can see what they can anticipate if the procedure is done as planned.
Our procedures for Asian Eyelid Surgery is done usually under local anesthesia with mild
to minimal sedation.
It’s – once the eyelids are numb, it’s very, very straightforward.
So it allows me to actually have the patient’s cooperation.
And I’ll actually have the patient open their eyes at a certain point during the surgery.
They won’t feel pain but it’ll give me an idea for everything I'm doing is on target
and moving in a right direction.
So again, to begin with, I would say, first to make sure the doctor has experience, expertise,
and an artistic style; and, of course, is you feel comfortable and communicate with
the doctor; and you feel trust.
You don’t want to be rushed, you don’t want to be pushed.
You know you want to feel like the doctor is advocating for you and will follow through
on delivering the best result as you desire.
So I hope that was helpful.
I wish you the best of luck.
And thank you for your question.