Plastic Surgery Blog

Breaking down the Cheek into Aesthetic Subunits: Avoiding Chipmunk Cheeks There is nothing uglier than big, chipmunk cheeks other than perhaps a devil looking arched brow or a duck-like lip.  How do you avoid this problem?  Should one not fill the cheeks at all then?  The answer is no since the cheek is one of […]

Fat Grafting:  A Little Everywhere Good taste with clothing means that the items one wears are in harmony, possess style, cut well, and made of good material.  Good cosmetic facial surgery is very similar.  The products (materials) one uses can determine the outcome and certain fillers, e.g., fat, Restylane, and Juvederm, work better in certain […]

The Happiness Hypothesis and Plastic Surgery A great book that I read last year was Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis in which the author outlines many parameters for happiness.  One of his points in the book is that great happiness that can last for years following cosmetic surgery.  Unlike many books on happiness and peace […]

Saving A Friend:  When Maybe You Should Tell Someone You Had Plastic Surgery I had a patient of mine in whom I had done facial fillers and Botox treatments over a period of two years.  In a word, she looked fabulous.  At 47 years of age she looked like she was in her mid-30s.  One […]

Understanding the Role of Artistry in Cosmetic Surgery and Enhancement One of the greatest compliments that I received was from an Italian plastic surgeon who flew from Italy trusting me to work on his wife’s face, which I performed in front of him.  I undertook a fat transfer on her face to make her look […]

Dr Samuel Lam Featured In NewBeauty Magazine National Glossy Magazine Heralded As The Ultimate Cosmetic Enhancement Guide. Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS, is featured in the Winter/Spring 2012 edition of NewBeauty magazine, which is due on newsstands in January 2012. The featured article discusses some of Dr Lam’s facial rejuvenation procedures and techniques that minimize […]

How I use Permanent Facial Fillers: Fat Transfer, Silicone, Bellafill(Artefill) In my clinical practice I use both temporary and permanent facial fillers depending on a mixture of budget, desires, and safety. Although permanent fillers carry the risk that they are indeed permanent, I believe that it is important to delineate safety guidelines and also to […]

Differentiating Type 1 from Type 2 Eyes When Considering Fat Transfer to the Upper Eyelid/Brow Complex A colleague of mine really got it right when he created a new perspective on seeing youthful eyes.  He called them Type 1 and Type 2 eyes.  I cannot recall which one was which, which is not important.  Suffice […]

Leveraging the Hardness of Products in Cosmetic Injectable Fillers How hard an injectable product is can be a very good thing or a not so good thing. In any case, I try to use products based on its hardness factors for differing effects on the face. One of the softest materials that I use is […]

Understanding the Aging Process Using Fat Grafting:  A Glass of Water Emptying The face undergoes significantly less gravitational descent than was once thought.  Although everyone oftentimes takes two fingers to lift up what appears to be sagging, this maneuver does not truly represent what can be accomplished with a lifting procedure nor does it reflect […]

Dismissing Fat Grafting Myths After speaking with patients who are vaguely familiar with fat grafting I have encountered a lot of misunderstanding about how fat grafting works and a lot of this misunderstanding comes from other surgeons who do not understand it.  Here are some of the top myths on fat grafting that I would like […]

Fat Grafting: Rethinking Aging of the Face A revolution is upon us today in how we see aging of the face and how we understand the aging process. In the past, the gravitational model held that all things fall including the brows, the eyelids, the cheeks, and the jawline. Using rigorous computer modeling and matching […]

Dr. Sam Lam lectures for Essential Energy in Plano, Texas on facial fat grafting also known as fat transfer, the most natural way to rejuvenate the aging face. Watch his video on fat transfer here below: