One of the reasons you are here is to choose a plastic surgeon. I know you are about to make a very important decision. Choose wrong, and you may regret it for a very long time. I value your time, so here are some bullet points as to why I think you should pick me. These are brief — this is the “No Spin” version. Please feel free to ask me or my staff to elaborate on any of these points. “I’m not bragging, I’m applying for a job.”
I’m experienced, but not too experienced. I am at the peak of my career, at the age of 53 and having done plastic surgery for almost 25 years. For myself, I would not want a surgeon who had only been in practice for just 5 or 10 years, nor someone about ready to retire.
I didn’t take short-cuts with my training. I completed a full 5-year general surgery residency, and then a full 3-year plastic surgery residency, and am board-certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Plastic Surgery. That was eight years of residency, after completing medical school.
Plastic surgery was my focus from the beginning of my entire 8 years of residency. When I interviewed for my general surgery residency in 1980, I told the Chairman of Surgery that I was going to be a plastic surgeon. If your surgeon trained in something else and then started doing plastic surgery, ask them when and why they decided to change, and why they didn’t start out in plastic surgery.
I didn’t rush into private practice right out of residency. Instead, I started my practice by training other plastic surgeons, as a full-time faculty member at the University of New Mexico, and I was subsequently appointed Chief of Plastic Surgery and Program Director of the ACGME accredited plastic surgery residency at UNM, a position that I held from 1990 until 1995. I earned tenure at UNM. Arizona does not have its own plastic surgery residency, and I believe I am the only practicing plastic surgeon in Arizona who has ever been the Program Director of any accredited plastic surgery residency, especially one at a major university. (If you know of another one, I hope you will tell me.)
I have been practicing plastic surgery in Scottsdale since 1995, after I had already been practicing plastic surgery at UNM for 7 years. I will take the time to listen to you, to understand what you are trying to accomplish, and to help you decide what to do. If your surgeon doesn’t have enough time for you before surgery, how likely are they to have enough time for you after?
