About Face

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About Face

Introduction The Surbery of Happiness Choosing a Surgeon Are You a Good Candidate

In each of these cases, the people involved were looking for “quick fixes” to life’s problems. Facial cosmetic surgery, however, is a long -term commitment (I’d never call it a solution), and only a part of wheat should be a well-adjusted approach to life. In my twenty years of practice, I have developed a couple of mostly intuitive tests for my potential patients, at least during the initial consultation. Basically, I try to assess whether they are listening to what I have to say, and whether we will get along.

I am wary of the patient who is too much of a perfectionist, because facial cosmetic surgery is not a precise art. Facial cosmetic surgery is merely an improvement on what already exists. If a patient with a crooked nose comes in and says, “Doctor, I want my nose straight,” the first thing I have to tell him is that I can’t guarantee it will be straight after surgery. But it should be straighter than when we started. Or a woman might tell me that she doesn’t want any sag under her eyes. I have to point out that if I were to try to remove 100 percent of the sag under her eyes, her lower eyelids would be so tight she may develop complications of a “rounded” eye or worse. (The lower eyelid would be pulled down into an unnatural, round shape instead of its normal ovoid or almond shape.) In addition to which, it is surgically impossible to actually remove 100 percent of the sag under anyone’s eyes. If I am one millimeter away from perfection, perfectionist will complain, and we’ll both be unhappy.

I don’t mention my unhappiness idly, by the way. The accepted personality profile of a facial cosmetic surgeon like myself is one with an elevated need to achieve, to excel, to control, to be right and to be seen in a favorable light (again, based on Dr. Wright’s research). The chances are very good that the perfection I seek in my work will far exceed the perfection that my patients desire. Nothing makes me happier than a job well done, and, in fact, facial cosmetic surgery has been called the “surgery of happiness”. There is no pleasanter experience than watching a patient bloom with the self-confidence that comes when an operation is successful and well-received. Young people with smoother skin after dermabrasion for acne scars start dating, ids who lose their “flyaway” ears (ears that stick out) make new friends - I’ve even witnessed an seventy-year-old real estate agent walk out the door after a face-lift to sell two homes in a week, the best she’d ever done.

As well as the perfectionist, I am wary of the patient with a secondary motive, like the old man who wanted a face-lift so his family would take him back. You’d be surprised at the number of people who come into my office, calmly sit down, then burst into tears when I ask them why they want something done. Quite often, this sort of patient is six months into a separation, and some of them even have arranged to see a divorce lawyer the same day they see me. They usually are highly motivated and say something like, “Just go ahead and do it, I don’t want to hear about complications.” The trouble is, what’s motivating them is painful, but temporary, emotional turmoil. My approach is to explain to them that we can indeed do the surgery they are asking for, but that we will not do it until their emotions have calmed. In the meantime, they might need some professional psychological counseling.

This is not to say that I automatically reject all patients who have had to suffer through a marriage breakdown. I had a patient come in one day who said he’d been divorced for a year and was anxious to get on with his life and “get out into the meet market”. His choice of words was a little off-putting, but I could see that he’d gone through the worst of his emotional strife and simply thought that getting rid of the bags under his eyes might give him some self-confidence.

The important thing was he realized, as all patients must realize, that while I can make people look better, given their age or physical circumstance, their destiny is in their own hands, not mine. I have no idea whether that fellow ever did go out into the meet market, or whether he stayed home and watched television, but whatever he did, thanks to facial cosmetic surgery, he looked a little better doing it.

So now that I’ve introduced myself and told you a bit about my profession, let’s talk about you, the potential patient.

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