Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Overcomfort podcast.
Speaker 2: Thank you guys so much for choosing to be here
Speaker 2: to watch this episode listening from where where you guys are.
Speaker 1: I greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 2: As you guys can see from the title of this video,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about my surgery journey and have
Speaker 2: a special guest, my doctor Remus Repta. He ultimately has
Speaker 2: changed my life for the better and has made me
Speaker 2: feel so confident and safe under his care, under his
Speaker 2: faculties care, under everything like I just feel very comfortable,
Speaker 2: and I'm so grateful. So thank you so much for
Speaker 2: flying out here to be here. I really really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: Of course, of course I couldn't.
Speaker 2: Everyone has always asked me questions about you, about my surgeries,
Speaker 2: about the process, and I felt what better way is
Speaker 2: to get the man himself to get on the podcast
Speaker 2: and to answer all the questions and to share I
Speaker 2: guess also my a bit of my journey. To start out,
Speaker 2: I had found doctor Repta, I believe.
Speaker 1: I think the first one was twenty twenty one. The
Speaker 1: first surgery my tummy tuck. Yeah, my tummy tuck BBL.
Speaker 2: But prior to that I had lived very on a
Speaker 2: very I've been on a diet my whole life basically,
Speaker 2: and it was kind of messing me with me mentally
Speaker 2: until I got more into it and more serious about
Speaker 2: my mental health and taking care of myself after COVID,
Speaker 2: and then I had found doctor Repta. I believe I
Speaker 2: would just I was just scrolling I had seen and
Speaker 2: I felt very discouraged because a lot of doctors do
Speaker 2: not allow surgeries due to BEMI, and I'm lucky that
Speaker 2: you you do, which I guess is my first questions
Speaker 2: because I think everybody has always asked, like, is there's
Speaker 2: no bm MY requirement at your office?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't have a BMI or a weight requirement?
Speaker 2: Okay, what And the reason is why? Because I feel
Speaker 2: like some people would probably see it as like a
Speaker 2: little scary, like make taking a risk yep, So can
Speaker 2: you elaborate on why why you don't have VMI?
Speaker 3: I think that's the ultimate question, and that's the question
Speaker 3: that we get often. I think sometimes people are afraid
Speaker 3: to ask because it's like maybe like, hey, why are
Speaker 3: you doing this when other people aren't? So there's a
Speaker 3: little full philosophical component to it too, right, So I
Speaker 3: like to look at all knowledge as temporary, right, because
Speaker 3: we think we know stuff until we find something else.
Speaker 3: So the true source of that is back in the
Speaker 3: nineteen eighties, way back in the nineteen eighties. You have
Speaker 3: to remember, it's like forty years ago. There was a
Speaker 3: paper that got published and all they did is they
Speaker 3: looked at complication rates for body contering and then associated
Speaker 3: with different levels of BMI, and they plotted this data
Speaker 3: out and they showed the higher the BMI, the higher
Speaker 3: the complication rate in terms of like infection and healing
Speaker 3: things of that nature. And that ended up basically setting
Speaker 3: the stage for plastic surgery community, the plastic surgeons putting
Speaker 3: an arbitrary cut off at either thirty or thirty five,
Speaker 3: even though there's a spectrum. It's like it wasn't like
Speaker 3: the complication rate all of a sudden, it's like zero,
Speaker 3: then like one hundred percent. Right. But that's what I'm
Speaker 3: talking about in terms of like knowledge is always a
Speaker 3: little bit temporary. And so I went through that same process,
Speaker 3: I learned the same information. In fact, when I took tests,
Speaker 3: that's what I answered, like, Hey, what's the what would
Speaker 3: you tell someone that came in with the BMI thirty five,
Speaker 3: And that's one of the questions that even like during residency,
Speaker 3: and the right answers like, well, tell them to lose
Speaker 3: some way. But for me, I had this thought that, hey,
Speaker 3: I yes, the complication rate does go higher up with
Speaker 3: the higher BMI, but that's if you do the same
Speaker 3: thing for everyone. But what if you customize it, what
Speaker 3: if you change it? Because at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: we do surgeries on high BMI patients non electively, Like
Speaker 3: if you have a heart attack or a mass on
Speaker 3: your breast, let's say, you know, we would we would
Speaker 3: do breast reconstruction all day long on people with BMIs
Speaker 3: of thirty five, forty, forty five, fifty. But then we
Speaker 3: would say no tummy tak you know, or no elective
Speaker 3: cosmetic surgery. So anyways, I started on that journey when
Speaker 3: I started my practice back in two as and A.
Speaker 3: I said, you know, I think it can be done,
Speaker 3: and I think it can be done safely and effectively.
Speaker 3: It just has to I have to figure out how
Speaker 3: to do it slowly, so incrementally increase the BMI, incrementally
Speaker 3: change how I do things before, during, and after surgery.
Speaker 3: So it's been a sixteen year journey to get to
Speaker 3: where we are now. So in the beginning, I started
Speaker 3: doing BMI's of thirty thirty five maybe forty, testing it
Speaker 3: out and then looking how the patients did, changing how
Speaker 3: I instructed the patients, how I did things before surgery,
Speaker 3: during surgery, after surgery, looking at the tissues, changing my design,
Speaker 3: and then it's just slowly increased that because safety is
Speaker 3: always the most important, right. Yeah, And so I think
Speaker 3: last year we did a BMI of eighty eight. Wow,
Speaker 3: now out of a gallop out of New York. She
Speaker 3: flew in the BMI of eighty eight, and even with
Speaker 3: my staff was used to doing high b and my patients,
Speaker 3: even they got a little bit concerned, like maybe maybe
Speaker 3: we finally pushed it beyond, but we stuck to what
Speaker 3: we know how to do in terms of educating the patient,
Speaker 3: designing the time you took, helping them recover, and she
Speaker 3: healed flawlessly, flew back to New York. Yeah. So anyways,
Speaker 3: the circle of that answer to your questions a long
Speaker 3: answer is I do it because I've been slowly developing aeroblastics.
Speaker 2: Like you've done your you have your little recipe, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and you've done every part, which is why
Speaker 2: I feel so confident in being under and comfortable with you.
Speaker 2: And I love that you give the opportunity for a
Speaker 2: lot of plus size women because it's almost physically impossible,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: They tell us it's impossible.
Speaker 2: I've told a lot of people, and I love that
Speaker 2: you know, you make it possible and make them feel
Speaker 2: safe and comfortable, and you have a special like the
Speaker 2: way you handle it is amazing.
Speaker 1: What is like your process before surgery? I've always wondered,
Speaker 1: because you're very.
Speaker 2: Calm, you're very collected, you you know, you go in,
Speaker 2: you're very confident about everything.
Speaker 1: So is there like a process that you do before surgery?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's changed along the way. I think we
Speaker 3: all change NonStop in our personal lives and our professional lives,
Speaker 3: and hopefully we change for the better. We adapt, we
Speaker 3: try to grow, we try to understand our weaknesses. I've
Speaker 3: always been a little bit on the OCD side, which
Speaker 3: is perfect. I got into the right profession for that.
Speaker 3: I've always been nervous, and even to this day, I
Speaker 3: have a little bit of that nervous energy about me,
Speaker 3: but I channel it into double checking, checking and triple checking.
Speaker 3: So my current process. Obviously. Now it's on sixteen plus
Speaker 3: years of experience, so things come a little bit more naturally.
Speaker 3: But I still visualize the surgery and I get into
Speaker 3: the office super early. I get in there, I got
Speaker 3: five five fifteen patients show up around six. I don't
Speaker 3: start marking them until about maybe six fifteen, So I
Speaker 3: have about an hour plus to visualize that surgery. And
Speaker 3: then we take a course preoperative photos beforehand and they're
Speaker 3: in the chart. So then I look at the photos
Speaker 3: and I make little mental notes, Ah, this is a
Speaker 3: little high here, this is a little bit big, this
Speaker 3: is a little bit you know, This leaves a little
Speaker 3: you know, and then I go through my stages. Okay,
Speaker 3: what do I want to avoid? You know? And so
Speaker 3: by the time I get into the operating room, a
Speaker 3: lot of the analytics, the design, the mental gymnastictics have
Speaker 3: been done, so now I can focus a little bit
Speaker 3: more on that artistry component. But that's my process. My
Speaker 3: process is visualizing and then looking at the photos prior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you already have it mentally planned, and I get
Speaker 2: that I have LCD too, so I get like, very
Speaker 2: if it doesn't go through, yeah, do you Okay?
Speaker 1: So how do you prepare for the worst?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's interesting because obviously you have to
Speaker 3: zoom way back out, so safety first, right, So obviously
Speaker 3: you never want to take the things for granted that
Speaker 3: result in the most health related things like obviously things
Speaker 3: that are associated with the heart and lung, so you know,
Speaker 3: heart attacks and pulmonary embolisms and all that stuff. And
Speaker 3: although I want to let go of things and delegate,
Speaker 3: I'm always my hands are always in it, so I'm
Speaker 3: always at the risk of maybe even you know, stepping
Speaker 3: on feet. I always double check with my staff, so
Speaker 3: as we're doing it, even though I've had staff for many,
Speaker 3: many years, I still double check because we're all humans, right,
Speaker 3: So as I'm doing my part, I touch base with
Speaker 3: my nurse. Is this on? You know? And they're like, yes,
Speaker 3: it's on. I've done it like a nine times. And
Speaker 3: then the anesthesiologists have we given that medication? You know? Yeah?
Speaker 3: You know. And I think as a team, that's what
Speaker 3: you do. You know, if you're a basketball team or
Speaker 3: a football team, everyone gets into a huddle like, hey,
Speaker 3: who's doing what? And I you know, and so we
Speaker 3: prepare for the worst by over preparing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to go on a quick break and
Speaker 2: we'll be right back with doctor Repdo Welcome back.
Speaker 1: You guys. Have you had any complications ever.
Speaker 3: Or complications always happened? Any surgeon who tells you that
Speaker 3: they've never had a complication is either lying or they're
Speaker 3: not operating enough. Because even during let's say a tummy tuck,
Speaker 3: there's thousands of sutures, hundreds of steps, dozens of medications,
Speaker 3: and little to dos. We've never had a death and
Speaker 3: that's the most important part. Yeah, ninety nine out of
Speaker 3: one hundred times, the patients fly through the process seamlessly
Speaker 3: with THETT complications. The vast majority of times when we
Speaker 3: do have a complications, there's small complications like suture pops,
Speaker 3: hair fowl, cole gets in grown. There's basically things that
Speaker 3: you just put a little dressing on it resolve itself.
Speaker 3: But I have had a handful of complications along the
Speaker 3: way where it did require me to go back in
Speaker 3: and address, you know, like maybe clean things out or
Speaker 3: set to the hospital for ivy atibiotics or things of
Speaker 3: that nature. I've had a few patients long ago you
Speaker 3: have to send them to the hospital because they need
Speaker 3: like extra care that you can't take care of the
Speaker 3: surgery center like a blood transfusion or something like that.
Speaker 3: But we do eight nine, ten twelve hour surgeries, you know,
Speaker 3: ten liter plus lipos and over sixteen years. The chances
Speaker 3: of someone doing those complicated long surgeries over sixteen years
Speaker 3: and not having any complicated it's zero zero for sure.
Speaker 2: It's something's bound to happen. But yeah, you've handled it well.
Speaker 2: You know the process. Again, that is why I'm so
Speaker 2: confident in being with you in your care. And when
Speaker 2: I had gotten my tummy tuck MBBL, when I tell you, guys,
Speaker 2: I felt no pain.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's just me. Everybody's body is different.
Speaker 2: But even after the second surgery of the light bo
Speaker 2: and the breastlift, like I've had no complications that I've
Speaker 2: felt healthy.
Speaker 1: I've felt awake, very very awake.
Speaker 2: And maybe that might be a little bit bit bad
Speaker 2: because then I feel like I'm okay and I need
Speaker 2: a you know, I need a rest, but I don't
Speaker 2: sometimes And I can honestly say, it's how you structure everything,
Speaker 2: it's how you suture everything.
Speaker 1: It's you know, the team.
Speaker 2: You have an amazing energy and amazing office. You know,
Speaker 2: I love every single person there. But what made you
Speaker 2: want to get into this specific practice?
Speaker 3: Well, I think the journey starts on you know, what
Speaker 3: made you go? What makes anyone go into medicine in general? Right?
Speaker 3: And so for me, it's actually a little bit about
Speaker 3: a funny story. So my parents. I was born in Romania, right,
Speaker 3: and so we moved to the US, actually Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: we moved initially, and so my parents being from a
Speaker 3: poor country, then they actually even went to high school
Speaker 3: because they're more of like a blue collar work and
Speaker 3: so for me, I had no idea of what professions
Speaker 3: there exist, So I kind of picked up cut profession
Speaker 3: out of a hat sort of space, so like doctor,
Speaker 3: because you don't really know other than you'd think of, like, oh,
Speaker 3: I can be an artist, or I can be an architect,
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff. And then when I got to
Speaker 3: med school, I didn't really like anything other than working
Speaker 3: with my hands, you know, which is interesting because blue
Speaker 3: collar parents and all this stuff. And so then I
Speaker 3: luckily I ran into my mentor, who was a plastic
Speaker 3: surgeon and med school and then I love doing that
Speaker 3: and he kind of took me under his his kind
Speaker 3: of wing. And then in that course, you go to
Speaker 3: residency and so on and so forth. So that's how
Speaker 3: I got into medicine and plastics. And then when I
Speaker 3: did my first fellowship was in Charlotte, and I was
Speaker 3: fortunate enough to work with a gentleman he since tired,
Speaker 3: who was a big body conterying surgeon, and he had
Speaker 3: all these ideas and all this work. And then so
Speaker 3: I was like the young guy coming in and so
Speaker 3: together I did all the like the administrative hard work,
Speaker 3: and I used he of course his idea, his experience.
Speaker 3: So we wrote a book together, it's called Atlas of Abdominoplasty.
Speaker 3: And then that then of course set up the stage
Speaker 3: for me to then do complicated tummy tuk's revisions, repairs,
Speaker 3: all that stuff. So when I moved to Phoenix started
Speaker 3: my practice, I almost instantly just started doing all everyone's
Speaker 3: like revisions. Right, So you're automatically all you're doing is
Speaker 3: revision timy tuch, revision tummy tuck, and you're doing you're
Speaker 3: seeing all these complications of other surgeons, and you're starting
Speaker 3: to learn, right, and then then that naturally led me
Speaker 3: to the higher BMI patients. Right. Yeah, So that's you
Speaker 3: can see how the dominoes kind of help.
Speaker 2: You're a very hard working man, and you know you
Speaker 2: have a lot. You know, they tell me he has
Speaker 2: a surgery this day, this day, this day. When what
Speaker 2: do you do on your time off or when do
Speaker 2: you think it's time to retire?
Speaker 3: That's a question, that's a great question. I've been thinking
Speaker 3: about it more actually recently. I don't know why not
Speaker 3: that I'm going to retire. I love what I do,
Speaker 3: but I think, you know, you go over some peak
Speaker 3: and then you kind of almost like start seeing the horizon,
Speaker 3: and you like, I better start planning for this, because
Speaker 3: first of all, you're not gonna do it forever. You know,
Speaker 3: in order to do this type of surgery, your body
Speaker 3: has to be in good shape. Eventually it wears out
Speaker 3: and you got to like transition to something else. So
Speaker 3: I've been thinking about it more. Which it's not a
Speaker 3: midlife crisis, but maybe it's the beginning of a midlife crisis.
Speaker 3: But I've been thinking about it because you know, you
Speaker 3: have to plan for it. So on the my time off,
Speaker 3: my wife and I have a place in a place
Speaker 3: called Pace in Arizona. It's up in the kind of
Speaker 3: the woods, and I just we just go up there.
Speaker 3: We you know, have a vegetable garden, and I pretend
Speaker 3: like I'm a lumberjack and cut down trees and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. Yeah. Yeah, Like I'm not a surgeon, but
Speaker 3: it's interesting because I'm still working with my hands. Banwa
Speaker 3: in like a lower pressure environment, so in a weird way,
Speaker 3: it kind of works. I used to race cars more often.
Speaker 3: I should start getting back to that. You know, you
Speaker 3: start falling off the horse. You're busy, and then so
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, like a week turns until a month,
Speaker 3: and a month turns it to six. Then six months,
Speaker 3: your car doesn't work any work because it's been sitting there.
Speaker 3: So a little bit of car racing, a little bit
Speaker 3: of outdoor work.
Speaker 1: You take the time for yourself.
Speaker 3: I do. I have to. I have to. I have
Speaker 3: to come back on Mondays and be not so much physically,
Speaker 3: although physically you have to be in good shape because
Speaker 3: if you do eight ten hour surgeries, we have to
Speaker 3: be mentally there. Because you can't cut corners. Once you
Speaker 3: cut one and then you cut two, they need to
Speaker 3: cut five. Then you're mediocre. Then it becomes unsafe. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: so you have to be one hundred percent there because again,
Speaker 3: like we talked about, I have to double check everyone's work.
Speaker 3: Everyone does a great job my stat in my office
Speaker 3: and my surgery center, but I'm the quarterback now and
Speaker 3: I have to be responsible for the patient. The patient's
Speaker 3: totally out and I have to It's my job to
Speaker 3: be ocd to the detriment of every analysis, right, So
Speaker 3: I have to. You know, when you're slightly burnt out
Speaker 3: or even a little bit lack of daisical, you don't
Speaker 3: have that mental energy to double check everyone's work. And
Speaker 3: I have to be one hundred percent there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's important, especially I think in
Speaker 2: your field, like you have a you know, have to
Speaker 2: mean on call, I'm assuming and just making sure, you know,
Speaker 2: taking that time for yourself. And I think in any
Speaker 2: line of work, I think it's super important to make
Speaker 2: sure you have that time to yourself because you, like
Speaker 2: you said, you are in the operating room eight to
Speaker 2: nine ten hours, you know, and you only you said
Speaker 2: you only do surgery once a day.
Speaker 3: Today I will we we do about eight to ten
Speaker 3: hours of surgery per day, about three days per week. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And obviously sometimes it fluctuates a little bit. If I
Speaker 3: do a like a ten to twelve hour surgery. I
Speaker 3: really feel it the next Dayeah. Yeah, And you know,
Speaker 3: like ten years ago, maybe I would have sprung back.
Speaker 3: So now I'm starting to book those longer surgeries, going
Speaker 3: to like the weekend, you know, because I need that
Speaker 3: gre corporation time.
Speaker 1: Is there a favorite surgery you like to perform?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's interesting. I think we all want
Speaker 3: to be good at something, and then when when you're
Speaker 3: good at something, you like it. When you like it,
Speaker 3: you lookod at you know. So it's like a circular process.
Speaker 3: So I feel supremely confident in tummy ducks. Not that
Speaker 3: there's no room for improvement, not that there's no room
Speaker 3: for learning, but I just feel so confident and so
Speaker 3: I love doing those plus with the higher be of
Speaker 3: my patients, with a patient clientele that we have now,
Speaker 3: the results are so dramatic and there's just so fun.
Speaker 3: They're just so fun seeing the patient even like you know,
Speaker 3: they say in our overnight facility. In the next day,
Speaker 3: they I take a quick peek at them and they
Speaker 3: look in the mirror and like instant emotion on their part.
Speaker 3: That kind of gets me a little bit emotional. All
Speaker 3: stuff and so it's nice to see that dramatic, that
Speaker 3: dramatic change. Technically, rhino classes are super fun because you
Speaker 3: can be ocd and you're rewarded for it because a
Speaker 3: millimeter is makes a difference. A millimeter in a timmy do,
Speaker 3: Nobody's gonna notice it, right, But in the rhino classes
Speaker 3: you can futs around with a millimeter and it's totally appropriate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, let's I want to talk about the
Speaker 2: broad line blacklift because you specialize in that, right, which
Speaker 2: is basically I like to call it the tummy talk
Speaker 2: for the back submi tug for the back.
Speaker 1: How did you discover that and what?
Speaker 2: Because I feel like you're you're master at that as well,
Speaker 2: which is what I have gotten as well. I have
Speaker 2: the tummy tuck BBL, the broad line backlift all in
Speaker 2: one surgery, and then we.
Speaker 1: Did the light bulb and breastlift.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that was the part of my first ones,
Speaker 2: and I would love I want to know more about that.
Speaker 1: It's worked wonders for me.
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes the skin back here and you know,
Speaker 2: I learn a lot of new things from you as well,
Speaker 2: but it.
Speaker 1: Just it's sometimes it's not going to go away. That's
Speaker 1: the best way to do it. But yes, tell me
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So The broad Line back Cliff got published in
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight, and it was actually my mentor.
Speaker 3: His name is Joe Huntedd. He since retired as the gentleman.
Speaker 3: I spoke what I did my first fellowship. He had
Speaker 3: experimented and kind of come up with that procedure. And
Speaker 3: then so when I did his fellowship, in fact, I
Speaker 3: was like his first main fellow. He had all these
Speaker 3: ideas and knowledge and but it never got out there.
Speaker 3: You know. He was like basically you know, because he's
Speaker 3: just so busy. And so he and I published The
Speaker 3: broad Line back Left, and then I think it's a
Speaker 3: great procedure. I think it's exactly like you said, it's
Speaker 3: like a time you talk for the back, and it's
Speaker 3: it's such a good way to think about it, because
Speaker 3: if you have loose skin in the front, you have
Speaker 3: no problems doing a time. He's like, women get it
Speaker 3: all the time, and I think in the back for
Speaker 3: a long time, people are like, well, there's loose skin
Speaker 3: in the back that's not even due, you know, But
Speaker 3: that's like one half of the equation, because the waste
Speaker 3: needs to be smooth and contoured all the way around, right,
Speaker 3: And so then over the last sixteen years, I just
Speaker 3: refined it, refined it, refined it. And if you do
Speaker 3: it really well and you do some light pup back there,
Speaker 3: and just like the tummy, if you do a good
Speaker 3: timmy and you do the lightpol through the flying, then
Speaker 3: the waist gets so it doesn't get longer, it gets narrow,
Speaker 3: but it looks longer. Yeah, right yeah, and then the
Speaker 3: hips flow into the waist and then the you know everything.
Speaker 3: I think it's such a keystone procedure. So oftentimes when
Speaker 3: patients UH do to a consultation and they have my
Speaker 3: breast bothered and my arms bothering, my back brother and
Speaker 3: my tummy, and of course you can't do it on
Speaker 3: one stage, I say, well, if if it was me,
Speaker 3: I'd start with a broad line back lift and the
Speaker 3: time you pluster minus breast, and that just works so well.
Speaker 3: So that's how it started, and I refine it over
Speaker 3: the process of the way. I especially like how the
Speaker 3: side of the chest gets conto work and I found
Speaker 3: that it actually helps me support the breast left more right,
Speaker 3: so my breast lifts because if you know when you
Speaker 3: gain weight and lose weight and maybe gravity and pulls
Speaker 3: the breast down. Your breast fold, which originally was horizontal,
Speaker 3: the bottom of it, the outside portion of the breastft.
Speaker 3: The breastfold gets canted down because all that tissue slides down.
Speaker 3: And so when you do a breastlift by itself, then
Speaker 3: you do the tissue gets lifted up with that fold
Speaker 3: still is like down and out. So when you do
Speaker 3: broad line backlift, you lift it back up. So I
Speaker 3: think it actually helps the breast lift.
Speaker 1: It does, it doesn't.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy with my results and everything that I've gotten.
Speaker 2: I have no complaints at all.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: There's girls or people because you work on men. Also,
Speaker 2: we're going to go on a quick break and we'll
Speaker 2: be right back with doctor Repdom. Welcome back you guys.
Speaker 2: How do you handle when the results isn't exactly how
Speaker 2: you envisioned it or how they come out?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah, So I think it's important for plastic surgeons
Speaker 3: to be their own worst critics so that the patient
Speaker 3: can be happy, but the plastic surgeon almost has to
Speaker 3: be unhappy, not to the detrimental where it's like bad
Speaker 3: for your mental health. But you so I take photos
Speaker 3: and This is how we started posting on Instagram and
Speaker 3: things of that nature. Because I always took photos before
Speaker 3: and after surgery, so I can compare right off the bat, right,
Speaker 3: because I had an an idea of how I wanted
Speaker 3: surgery to go, and then I wanted to compare instant feedback.
Speaker 3: Right It's like cooking and you're like taste it, like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: too much salt, whatever that is. And so I always
Speaker 3: I'm the most critical because I want to obviously improve
Speaker 3: do better now. When there's unhappiness on the part of
Speaker 3: the patient, I always I'm an open book, so I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: let's totally discuss that, what are you unhappy about? Are
Speaker 3: there some things that we can improve on? Are there
Speaker 3: some things that I could have done better? And then
Speaker 3: I like bringing in photos because sometimes the patient might
Speaker 3: be unhappy or unsatisfied, but then when you look at
Speaker 3: the photos and you do some measurements, they forget what
Speaker 3: they look like you now, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: there's still opportunity. Maybe before improvement, but now maybe their
Speaker 3: mind has caught up with the reality. And sometimes we
Speaker 3: look at before and after before I was like, totally
Speaker 3: let's take a little bit more likeable. Let's take a
Speaker 3: little bit more, I could have done more, or maybe
Speaker 3: your skin stretched out. I am there for my patient's
Speaker 3: kind of journey. I obviously I'm there to complete them,
Speaker 3: you know, complete that process and do the best that
Speaker 3: I can for them. Sometimes it's important for them to
Speaker 3: look at them before and after photos because that there's
Speaker 3: that transition before, like they're how they envision themselves and
Speaker 3: how they really are now.
Speaker 2: Is there anything that you have you haven't done, that
Speaker 2: you would like to practice or like to like to
Speaker 2: do one day a surgery?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I just want to do everything better.
Speaker 3: I do facelifts, I do rhino plasticas, I'll do a
Speaker 3: ton because obviously I do so much body countering, so
Speaker 3: I do a lot of you know, tummy tucks and
Speaker 3: brawl and backlets and breastlefts and armless of thielifts. So
Speaker 3: I think the key is just to get better and better.
Speaker 3: I'm an interesting point in my practice because if I
Speaker 3: do something new, I have to ask myself, well, is
Speaker 3: there someone else out there that can do it better
Speaker 3: than I can? Because if they can, I should refer
Speaker 3: them to them, right, Because I want to just be
Speaker 3: in this arena of excellence.
Speaker 1: Be honest, Yeah, totally honest.
Speaker 3: You just send people to the people have more experience
Speaker 3: than that. I'm in an area where I just tend
Speaker 3: to get very challenging surgeries, even like mash removal from
Speaker 3: prior hernias and a weird complicated hernia replace. And so
Speaker 3: sometimes when I do do surgeries I've never done before,
Speaker 3: but also they've never been done before, right, and then
Speaker 3: so I have to I sit there with them. I
Speaker 3: tell the patient like, listen, I've never done this before.
Speaker 3: It doesn't technically exist. I know how to do components
Speaker 3: of it. I think I could pull it all together
Speaker 3: and then do it for you. And it's kind of
Speaker 3: scary and it's kind of exciting, but the patient's kind
Speaker 3: of scared but also relieved because there's no other answer.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that I've started doing with
Speaker 3: the last maybe five years or so is something called
Speaker 3: congeneral semassia. It's when patients are born with no cleavage.
Speaker 3: It's like one breast all the way across, and so
Speaker 3: that doesn't exist. I've done maybe two three dozen of them,
Speaker 3: and I'm getting ready to publish that as well, because
Speaker 3: we got we got to get the information out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the people think that it's not possible, and
Speaker 2: this is a lot of people in this world. I
Speaker 2: do want to say, like, I think one of my
Speaker 2: favorite things about getting surgery done by you is that
Speaker 2: you've obviously made me feel confident. But before when we've
Speaker 2: been on the phone, when at my preop appointments, you've
Speaker 2: also like you do not point pinpoint.
Speaker 1: Anything that I need to get done.
Speaker 2: It's always what I want and what I feel, And
Speaker 2: obviously you give your honest and humble opinion in the
Speaker 2: most sweetest and kindest way. So I love the way
Speaker 2: you approach your patients and the work that you do.
Speaker 2: Have you ever said no to a patient?
Speaker 3: Though I have, but it's not very common. I thought
Speaker 3: when I was training that it would be a more
Speaker 3: common thing because I would find interesting things about how
Speaker 3: patients thought, or their visions and the selves or like
Speaker 3: that body this smorphic disorder. But I think you kind
Speaker 3: of your track who you are, and you know it's
Speaker 3: a kind of self fulfilling prophecy. So most of my
Speaker 3: patients are great patients, and they have reasonable desires and
Speaker 3: reasonable expectations. So I rarely come across situations where I
Speaker 3: either don't feel like I'm the right surgeon for them,
Speaker 3: or they're not the right person to have that surgery
Speaker 3: and the right mind frame our body. Every once in
Speaker 3: a while I might pause them and might they might
Speaker 3: want certain surgeries and there's just enough details of their
Speaker 3: medical history. I'm like, let's circle back on this. I
Speaker 3: have a little bit of my I have a gut
Speaker 3: feeling about this. So if you're okay with it, come
Speaker 3: back in another three months and then let me let's reassess.
Speaker 3: You know, that kind of stuff. But I think you
Speaker 3: kind of attract you know, we all have family and
Speaker 3: friends and things of that age, and you know, you
Speaker 3: kind of attract the same kind of tribe. And most
Speaker 3: of my patients are just good, happy patients that have
Speaker 3: gone through journeys of weight gain weight loss and you know,
Speaker 3: trauma one way or the other. And they're totally great
Speaker 3: patients and they're happy. And I rarely have confrontations with patients. Obviously,
Speaker 3: you know, every once in a while you might have
Speaker 3: a patient that you know, maybe not in the right
Speaker 3: frame of mind, and I don't catch that and things
Speaker 3: of that nature. But by and large, we've been really
Speaker 3: fortunate and I'm grateful for it. But yeah, no, it's
Speaker 3: surprisingly not a lot of no's out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so who gets a yes? Like what are
Speaker 1: the requirements?
Speaker 3: Well, so it's simple, and I think it's important to
Speaker 3: not get lost in the weeds. Like remember we talked
Speaker 3: about the B and I paper, you know, and like, oh,
Speaker 3: B I thirty five no for everyone? Well okay, why
Speaker 3: is that? Can you do it differently? And what does
Speaker 3: that all that mean? So for me, I have two
Speaker 3: basic check marks for a green light to have surgery.
Speaker 3: Is the main ones is One is can I do
Speaker 3: a surge out in this person and do so safely? Right?
Speaker 3: Because safely is a safety is always the most important.
Speaker 3: Second is if I do the surgery and I could
Speaker 3: do so safely, will they get a great result? Great result?
Speaker 3: Meaning will they be happy? Is that a good investment
Speaker 3: of their time and money? Right? Because if as soon
Speaker 3: as I check off those two boxes, it's a green
Speaker 3: light for me, because why not if they're going to
Speaker 3: be happy and they're happy with the time and money
Speaker 3: they spend and I can do so safely, like that's
Speaker 3: a win win for everyone. Right. Yeah, And then of
Speaker 3: course you get into the details of like, you know,
Speaker 3: are they getting pressured by this? Is you know, sometimes
Speaker 3: you can feel people stretch, like you know, maybe they
Speaker 3: have circumstances in their family and you can just feel
Speaker 3: like they're stretching. And sometimes they just bring it up,
Speaker 3: like is this a good time for you? Because I'm
Speaker 3: not going anywhere. It will be if it's a better
Speaker 3: time for you six months from anwur a year from now,
Speaker 3: I'll still be here. And it's interesting because you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes patients take a year or two three to find me,
Speaker 3: think about it, and then make a decisions because it's
Speaker 3: a big financial investment and they have to set up
Speaker 3: their times. Yeah. Told, that's why I think constellations is
Speaker 3: so important. And it's funny because then they have surgery
Speaker 3: and then they're like, man, I wish I would have
Speaker 3: done this three years ago. I'm like, but I'm much
Speaker 3: better now than three years ago. So it isn't that
Speaker 3: great that it's a you know, it's kind of that
Speaker 3: that's the benefit of always getting better, you know, just
Speaker 3: the process of bettering yourself for sure.
Speaker 2: Well, I want to thank you again so much for
Speaker 2: coming here and giving us your insight and your thoughts.
Speaker 2: Thank you one last question, what is your piece of
Speaker 2: advice for anyone entering the medical field or specifically the
Speaker 2: practice of plastics.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, there's probably a lot of downward pressure
Speaker 3: on going to medicine now, meaning like parents are not
Speaker 3: parents are doctors are not recommending medicine to their kids
Speaker 3: because there's been a lot of changes, and maybe the
Speaker 3: changes will go start going in a different direction. But
Speaker 3: the autonomy of doctors have kind of decreased, and maybe
Speaker 3: the some of the benefits of going into medicine has changed.
Speaker 3: So I would just say, you know what, give some
Speaker 3: thought to the end result. Where do you see yourself
Speaker 3: like ten fifteen years from now, because things change. You
Speaker 3: might want to go into medicine for one reason, but
Speaker 3: you have to remember that you're going to change five, ten,
Speaker 3: fifteen years ago. You may want to have a family,
Speaker 3: you might want to have different flexibilities in your life.
Speaker 3: So give that some thought. The benefit is that you
Speaker 3: can go into medicine and then you can just change. Yes,
Speaker 3: there's an investment of time and money, and you know,
Speaker 3: don't look at it as like wasted opportunity because that's
Speaker 3: all knowledge and you can parlay it into different things.
Speaker 3: Maybe you come up with a technology or a product,
Speaker 3: and you're going to be a better inventor if you're
Speaker 3: a doctor, if you go into that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: So I think it's you know, you don't want to
Speaker 3: have regrets. So if you want to go into medicine,
Speaker 3: try to define what that really means for you, whether
Speaker 3: it's you know, working with your mind or working with
Speaker 3: your hands. Try not to go into it for money,
Speaker 3: because you know, the money should be a byproduct of
Speaker 3: doing something that you're passionate about it. It always comes with it.
Speaker 3: And then try to think about like lifestyle, you know,
Speaker 3: like you know, do you want to be in the hospital,
Speaker 3: do you want to be in the operating room? That
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. But just generally be honest with yourself.
Speaker 3: If you want to do it, do it, and if
Speaker 3: you change your mind later on, that's fine. Play people
Speaker 3: change careers all the time. We change as people, all right,
Speaker 3: and then just change change tracks. I think I'm not
Speaker 3: a big fan of poo pooing things like, oh things
Speaker 3: aren't as good as I used to be. Well, things
Speaker 3: always change, right, So if you still wanted to make
Speaker 3: it better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good. I love that.
Speaker 2: I love the way you see life and see everything
Speaker 2: forward and it's very positive and I really appreciate it. It
Speaker 2: brings like a good energy and I think it's importantly
Speaker 2: as a patient as well. You know. I think the
Speaker 2: first time that I met you, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be good like that, have good hands,
Speaker 2: I don't have nothing to worry about and.
Speaker 1: People.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you guys can go ahead and reach doctor
Speaker 2: repped up for consultation. Everyone's prices are different. My price
Speaker 2: might be different from your price, but I definitely recommend
Speaker 2: you guys checking out getting a consultation if it is
Speaker 2: something that interests you. I put my life in this
Speaker 2: man's hands twice already, and I've came out great and
Speaker 2: it's worked out amazingly and I'm very happy with my results.
Speaker 2: And I appreciate you so much. Your art and your technique.
Speaker 1: Is very very appreciated and it is a one of
Speaker 1: a kind. And you know, if you retire, that's fine.
Speaker 1: I have no other surgery that I want to get.
Speaker 2: So that's fine. No, but I really really appreciate and
Speaker 2: especially coming from someone that was his plus size, like,
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you breaking the norms and link to
Speaker 2: it and you know, testing things out and taking that risk.
Speaker 2: So I applaud you because I'm sure it's very scary
Speaker 2: and weird. Yeah, but but yeah, thank you again. Make
Speaker 2: sure you guys follow doctor Repta Underscore Plus Surgery. Okay,
Speaker 2: if you guys are looking into getting surgery, you want
Speaker 2: to know more about doctor Repta, please follow him on
Speaker 2: Doctor Repta Underscore Plastic Surgery. He is available, he has
Speaker 2: a great team.
Speaker 1: Get a console if you really want to.
Speaker 2: And yeah, so thank you, thank you again and I
Speaker 2: will see you guys next. Overcover Podcast is a production
Speaker 2: of Iheart's Michael Turap podcast Network