Globalization of Beauty: Trends and Concepts

Globalization of Beauty

The traditional view on beauty has focused on the standard of the Caucasian, Nordic race.  In the past two decades the trend has been to incorporate many models of mixed heritage.  In fact, with the growing acceptance of marriage between races, racial lines have continued to blur in the United States; and racial barriers have diminished.  Reading an article in the New York Times recently stimulated this blog post.  Many students who are entering college today do not know how to respond when asked what race or ethnicity they belong to when they are perhaps part of several or at least two.  I think when I talk about “Asian beauty” or “Hispanic beauty” etc., I may be oversimplifying these terms for the sake of categorical purity.  However, the case is that these terms may already be outdated.  When I look at prospective patients’ faces I am always ethnically sensitive, especially growing up as an Asian kid in a primarily white Texas culture.  Travelling abroad and completing almost 6 months of training in Asia has made me more culturally aware of the effacement of racial lines.  In addition, I did all of my training in the East Coast, where there is truly a melting pot of cultures, identities, and ethnicities.  So forgive me if I tend to write in categorical ways on this Web site but take it that I am very sensitive to the composite of one’s ethnic persuasion when helping you achieve your desired aesthetic goals.

Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS is a board certified plastic surgeon, specializing in facial plastic surgery. For more info, or to schedule a consultation please call (972) 312-8188. If you would like to ask Dr Lam a question please visit our Plastic Surgery Forum.

Flow and Passion in Facial Plastic Surgery

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi came up with the concept of flow, the time when skills and passion intersect and the person gets lost in his work.  Think of a great sports player who is completely in sync with his work.  That flow is what drives me deeply.  I am entranced with facial plastic surgery, and my work supports my passion.  I aim always to get better because I love what I do.  I am driven by that.  I always say when you are meeting a surgeon for the first time, look in his or her eyes and see what stares back at you.  If you see no passion in his or her eyes, leave.  If you are focused on the deep passion in your heart for what you do, you cannot help but deliver excellent work (if you have sufficient talent to support that passion) and you cannot help but continue to excel.  My patients always wonder why does Dr. Lam have again something new and better when last year it was already pretty darn good.  The answer is flow and passion.  I am constantly looking to improve my game, get better, and deliver better results.  It is a never ending journey of improvement for you, my dear patient.

Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS is a board certified plastic surgeon in Dallas, Texas, specializing in facial plastic surgery procedures. For more info, or to schedule a consultation please call (972) 312-8188. If you would like to ask Dr Lam a question please visit our Plastic Surgery Forum.

Accent XL:  Skin Tightening as an Important Adjunct to Cosmetic Enhancement

Sometimes skin tightening is overrated and sometimes it simply does not work. In the past I used infrared technologies but abandoned it due to short-lived results. I have instead relied on radiofrequency work with the Accent XL to achieve skin tightening with increasingly better results. With a new handpiece that I acquired last year I have been able to get deeper and more profound results in areas like sagging necks, arms, buttocks, and cellulite, obviously all within reason. I do not get a facelift result or a body contouring result but the sagging and wrinkling skin is helped by the Accent XL. My mother is shown here only 2/3 through the treatment sessions with a much better result in her overall wrinkling and sagging. Although skin tightening is not a miracle treatment, it can help in a non-invasive way to improve skin texture and tone.

Accent XL results of my mom's arms

Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS is a board certified plastic surgeon in Dallas, Texas. To learn more about Dr Lam’s plastic surgery procedures or to learn more about Accent XL procedures please call (972) 312-8188 to schedule a consultation. If you would like to ask Dr Lam a question about facial plastic surgery please visit our Plastic Surgery Forum.

Joan Rivers Plastic Surgery: From Overlifted to Overfilled

Joan Rivers, From Overlifted to Overfilled

Joan Rivers has been the poster child of bad plastic surgery for quite some time now.  She was one of the most overlifted individuals that anyone has ever witnessed, but I believe that she may have gone overboard in the other direction, which is overfilling. The LA Times recently stated that Joan Rivers, now 78 years old, had her 734th cosmetic procedure.

Like anything in cosmetic surgery, taste and discretion using artistic judgment are paramount when working on the sensitive nature of the face.  Just because fat grafting maybe a good thing, it certainly can be a bad thing in the wrong hands making people look overbloated, unbalanced, and unnatural.

Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS is a board certified plastic surgeon in Dallas, Texas. To see more celebrity plastic surgery blog posts, or to learn more about Dr Lam’s plastic surgery procedures please call (972) 312-8188 to schedule a consultation. If you would like to ask Dr Lam a question about facial plastic surgery please visit our Plastic Surgery Forum.

When to Say No: Understanding Limits of Plastic Surgery

I had a longstanding patient in whom I had done 5 rounds of micro silicone injections into her lips.  Her results were stunning, natural, and feminine.  She came back a year afterward wanting more.  I humbly tried to talk her out of it, begged her not to ask for more, but to no avail.  She wanted more.  I declined.  She threatened to go to another plastic surgeon.   I told her that would be a good idea since we could not meet on the same aesthetic turf.  She called my staff the next day saying that she was involved in a car accident because of my refusal to work on her.  Fortunately, I recently saw her again for fillers in areas that I thought she would benefit from it (not the lips) and she was ecstatically happy with my results.

Saying No in Plastic Surgery

Sometimes you must learn to say no to a patient because saying yes will contravene what makes good sense to you as a surgeon and violate your inner aesthetic principles.  I say no all the time. The hardest time to say no to a patient is after you have already established a relationship.  It is far easier to tell someone no before you start to work on him or her during the initial consultation.  In today’s world of the Internet, you have to be careful even how you say no to him or her because people just starting posting a bad review even if you refuse them service.  I always tell my patients, the reason I say no is not because I am interested in losing money but because I cannot stand doing the wrong thing for someone that would destroy my artistic sensibilities.

Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS is a board certified plastic surgeon in Dallas, Texas. To learn more about Dr Lam’s plastic surgery procedures please call (972) 312-8188 to schedule a consultation. If you would like to ask Dr Lam a question about facial plastic surgery please visit our Plastic Surgery Forum.