Yes, No, Maybe: The Personal Questions You Actually Asked Me

You asked, so I answered. This round wasn't about procedures at all, it was personal. Everything from whether I automatically notice someone's chest when they walk into a room, to whether I've ever been starstruck by a patient. Nothing was off limits.

I know a lot of plastic surgeons say they do this, that they're constantly seeing things to fix everywhere they look.

I just don't see the world that way. When I walk into a room, I'm not cataloguing anyone's body or mentally drafting a surgical plan. People are people, not projects.

For my actual patients: no. I don't lie to them and claim I can't do a certain procedure. If I don't want to do something on you for some reason, I'll be honest and tell you that directly. You deserve a real answer, not a dodge, which is the same reason I think your surgeon should tell you plainly when something isn't right for you.

In my personal life, though? Different story. When people are harassing me like a zoo animal at kid events and family gatherings, I will sometimes fib and say I don't do that procedure just to get some peace. Guilty as charged.

I'm not someone who cries when I'm frustrated, upset, or things aren't going smoothly.

In fact, people who know me will tell you that those tense moments are when I'm the calmest you'll ever find me. Something about a problem in the operating room makes me go very quiet and very focused. That's just how I'm wired, and honestly, it's a useful trait in this job.

Always. Throughout a career there are special patients who are extremely meaningful to you, and who teach you lessons. I carry those people with me, and certain things will bring them right back.

Here's my favorite example. I have a patient I truly love who gave me a beautiful bowl that sits in my kitchen. It's been ten years, and I still think about her at least once a month when I refill that candy bowl.

Ten years later, a candy bowl. That's the part of this job people don't see.

It's pretty rare for me. I trained at Cedars and I work in LA, so I see celebrities all the time, and honestly, I'm not really that person. I don't really care.

But there was one celebrity, one time, where I was completely starstruck and could not talk to them. And they weren't even a patient, they were a friend of a patient.

I can't tell you who it was. But it was a genuinely funny experience for me, because it had never happened before and hasn't since.

• Sizing up chests in a room: no, I don't see the world that way
• Faking incompetence: never with patients (I'll be honest with you), occasionally to escape a party
• Crying in the OR: no, that's when I'm at my calmest
• A patient I still think about: always, ten years and one candy bowl later
• Starstruck: once, and I still can't say who

People are often surprised that the personal answers are this ordinary. But that's sort of the point, this is a job about people, and the parts that stay with you are almost never the surgical ones.