Thank you for the question.
You submitted a description without a photo but essentially you are asking about making
a decision about choosing the right specialist for your eyelid surgery.
You describe in your question that you like the doctor who is a chief of plastic surgery
at a hospital but clearly your concern is because you didn’t see many examples of
eyelid surgery whether or not this is a decision that will likely result in a good outcome.
Well, you might not realize this but you have asked a question that result frequently into
specialty rivalry particularly between general plastic surgery and the rest of the world
and I can give you some guidance and I certainly do have my own personal bias.
A little bit of background, I’m a board certified cosmetic surgeon and fellowship
trained oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon.
I’ve been in practice for over 20 years.
I perform eyelid surgery everyday of the week and I deal with some of the most complicated
situations related to cosmetic surgeries such as complications from eyelid surgery.
I perform complex eyelid surgeries including ptosis, eyelid retraction and reconstructions.
My background training is in ophthalmology before specializing plastic surgery and eventually
specializing as medic oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgery.
I think that it is important that it is a reasonable thing to question about before
and afters.
When people come to my practice and they don’t know about me and again 20 years in practice
and I have been operating a lot of eyes and certainly a lot of complicated eyes and there
are albums upon albums of before and after pictures in my office to help people kind
of look for people who look like themselves and some degree to see the results and to
see the styles.
I think before and after is very important and cosmetic surgery is different from plastic
surgery.
Cosmetic surgery is a unique specialty where the training is emphasizing cosmetic surgery
alone as opposed to general plastic surgery which is a 2-year residency covering everything
from head to toe.
Now of course it is not necessarily relevant when a doctor has reached a level like the
doctor you are thinking whether chief of plastic surgery at a hospital.
That being said, I have operated and performed versions of surgery for patients who have
gone to the best plastic surgeon in whatever designation you want to say, the local plastic
chief surgery at the hospital, the voted best doctor, etc.
I have done revision surgery for some patients of whom have gone to the “best plastic surgeons”
who were in various levels of their well-established careers.
And in many situations, I would say there were opportunities to do the procedures slightly
differently so that the patient got the desired outcome.
And a lot of times, there were situations where the patients really had fairly advanced
problems.
I think that one of the things I certainly adhere to in my practice in over 20 years
is basically if you do something extremely well and you specialize in it, you are going
to do more than the other people who don’t specialize and you are going to have a certain
judgment and mastery.
On top of that, this is an art and this is an art where each surgeon has their own signature
style.
So, I think it is reasonable for you to ask this doctor about their styles with eyelid
surgery.
I am not going to say that every oculoplastic surgeon is better than general surgeons.
That is pointless.
Every doctor who has performed residency, fellowship and specialization has a special
level of competency and expertise.
What you want is comfort with personality which you already are and comfort with the
style which yet to establish.
So, I think it is important to ask the doctors about before and afters.
Someone who reached this level should have volumes of before and after if they are doing
eyelid surgery.
What I have learned overtime is plastic surgeons, particularly general plastic surgeons who
focus, tend to end up doing certain things a lot.
Some maybe specializing in breast reconstruction, some maybe in hand surgery, some might specialize
in tummy tucks and whatever they specialize in, they do a lot of.
So even they do have generalized training, they eventually found an area that works for
them and that they like and they became experts in the field.
Some have become experts in eyelid surgery.
So it really is a matter of choosing the right doctor based on what you’re comfort level
is and outcomes and that really you need before and after pictures.
And I can’t think of another way that you would be able to confirm or as attain whether
or not you will get the desired result and you shouldn’t be afraid of offending the
doctor.
Asking the doctor questions is your right.
I feel this point of communication is that people understand and have full disclosure.
If I bring new technology into my practice and I have not used it for significant amount
of time, I let the patients know this is a new technology and we are going to be doing
this for one of the first few times if I ever used something and they will be informed of
that and make an informed decision.
Ask your doctor how much eyelid surgery they do, how much they do regularly and we will
show examples of before and after on someone who looks like yourself.
This will give you a sense of comfort.
You shouldn’t feel like you should go ahead and do it the way the doctor is saying because
if they are only doing eyelid surgery as a small percentage of what they do, I would
doubt they have the same level of quality and expertise as someone who does it frequently
and this applies any specialty regardless of the procedure.
So go ahead and say if you have any additional questions.
Ask your doctor about looking into before and after pictures.
Maybe the doctor has them on a hard drive, maybe on a computer and they are able to show
you.
I know that it is hard for me to keep up with the volume of surgery that I do with new before
and after and I try to do as many as I can and give some general examples but very often
I take my laptop out and show my perspective patients some examples of before and after
that I haven’t yet published out on the web or in print or anything like that.
So meet with the doctor.
Just be comfortable and if you are not comfortable, seek additional opinions and learn about specialties
such as oculoplastic surgery so that you can meet with specialists about this option as
well see if you are comfortable.
So I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for your question!