(relaxing music)
- I'm Dr. Greg Guilfoyle.
I'm a plastic, reconstructive and cosmetic surgeon.
I'm seeing patients at both the Bethlehem
and the Allentown campuses here
at Coordinated Health.
The reason I chose plastic and reconstructive surgery
is multiple levels.
First, innate in me was when my mother
was diagnosed with breast cancer.
I saw her go through the pain of breast cancer surgery
as well as her reconstructive stages
and the stress that that brought on both
my family and my mother herself.
Second, I feel like plastic surgery
is really the last true general surgical specialty.
No one else operates on the face and then the scalp
and then the hand and then the body on any given day.
Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to go into medicine.
Probably the hardest decision for me
was giving up athletics for better grades.
I was born and raised in Boston
and went to undergraduate at the University of Vermont
in Burlington, Vermont.
Since then I went subsequently to medical school in Maine.
I tried to stay in New England to be closer to my family.
After medical school I relocated down to Philadelphia
for my general surgical training.
I did five years in the Main Line Health System
just outside of Philadelphia.
Having met my wife down in Philadelphia,
I tried to stay local for my fellowship
and I did my two-year plastic surgery fellowship
at Temple University in Philadelphia.
There's three kinda stages to
plastic reconstructive and cosmetic surgery.
I mean, there's very different aspects
depending on the patient population that we're seeing.
There's the patients that I treat primarily,
which tend to be a lot of skin cancers
and that sort of thing.
Then there's the people that have been operated on
by other doctors that need my help in their reconstruction.
The most common in that scenario, I would say,
is the breast cancer patient.
And on top of that, there's the cosmetic surgery practice,
which is a completely separate niche.
And in that respect, the patients that come in
are basically providing a service
for what they feel that they need help with.
As far as all the different procedures
that I perform, I have my favorites in each different area.
I would say in the reconstructive side of things,
my heart and soul goes to the breast cancer patient,
as my own history of my mother.
As far as the skin cancer patients,
they're probably the most thankful patients on the planet.
When they have a lesion on their face
and say, "I need to get put back together again."
And then once it's over, they're the most grateful
patients on the planet.
As far as the cosmetic surgery procedures,
probably the most common procedure done
in the United States right now, by any surgeon, is Botox.
Millions and millions of procedures
are performed every single year.
As a plastic surgeon, we talk about
patients' wellness and health and well-being
in a different way than other doctors do.
The most common thing I would tell people is stop smoking.
Nothing ages a patient's face like cigarette smoke does.
Second, moisturize.
Moisturized skin will always stay healthier.
But across the board, the most common reason
why patients appear to age more rapidly is sun damage.
So probably the most important thing
that anyone can do for themselves
is protect themselves with sunscreen.
In evaluating patients for cosmetic surgery,
people do say that they want the nose of Jennifer Aniston
or they want the breasts of Angelina Jolie.
But sometimes it's not necessarily
the most realistic option.
It's not a Mr. Potato Head.
You don't cut and paste and take the best features
of everyone and put them together
cause if you did that, for some of the prettiest people
in the world, it's not gonna look right.
So it's more what's best for the patient
and their physical features.
I'm my hardest critique and I settle
for nothing but perfection.
So to take that, that strive for excellence,
to bring it to medicine, I feel the same way.
Well, outside of medicine, I found the
Lehigh Valley very attractive.
My wife and I are both active outdoor enthusiasts.
We're both adventure racers.
Mountain biking, cycling, running, climbing,
we love doing all of that sort of thing
and we do it together.
We do it as a team.
And the Lehigh Valley offers that in every aspect
from South Mountain to Jim Thorpe.
But one of the most important things
in medicine today is continuity of care
and the ability for doctors to communicate
openly and honestly.
I've actually had the pleasure of marrying
one of those doctors, and her name is Dr. Cara Guilfoyle.
She's a breast surgeon here at Coordinated Health.
When a patient sees and is evaluated by a breast surgeon,
the patient would then be sent to my office.
We will talk about all the different reconstructive options,
what we can offer, what is best indicated
for her, what her goals are.
Typically I'm involved prior to the procedure itself,
where I'll be making my marking on the patient
where I think that the incisions will be best hidden
and where she'll get the best cosmetic result.
The breast surgeon will use my markings
to do the surgery that they need, their oncological
part of their surgery.
And then I'm typically there the whole time.
It's important to get it done right.
So having that open line of communication
is 100% necessary.
Why I truly love my specialty in that
the day is never the same.
Patients have quoted their breast cancer surgeons
as curing their cancer and the plastic surgeons
as making them feel whole again.
And that's very satisfying to me and what I do every day.
(relaxing music)