1-800-Dr New Me, Cosmetic Surgery Facts & More!
NEED TO KNOW THE FACTS? HAVE FEAR OF COMPLICATION OF COSMETIC SURGERY?
THIS SITE IS ABOUT THE TRUTH! NOT FAKE NEWS, FAKE REVIEWS, AND CYBERYBULLYING TYPE OF COMMUNICATION! THE GOOD OLD TRUTH!
Setting the Record Straight about Fake Claims & Lies!
Too Many Allegations, False Claims, Name-Calling, Misrepresentations & Flat-Out Lies to Ignore!
We know that anyone can make any allegation about anyone, make claims and even make up lies. Most people are decent and don't! Cybercriminals do!
That is the problem with Fake News, Fake Reviews, Cyberbullying and Cybercrimes of all types! These days, cybercriminals can destroy others' credibility by misrepresenting the truth! The question is, can they prove their claims? That is the test!
CLAIM: I have been "disfigured"!
RESPONSE:
What do you mean by "disfigured"?
Anyone can claim that!
What does that exactly mean?
This is the favorite Cyberbullying Technique! Make Up a disatserous, vague and ambiguous claim that frightens the life out of anyone, and insist on your position, and claim that the doctor was responsible for that outcome! An outcome that no one has any knowedge of its existence to begin with, and no one can ever disprove its existence, because they can't force you to undress! They have to take your word for it!
When one uses the term "disfigured", it sends shivers down everyone's spine. The question is:
What are you exactly speaking of? Is it scarring caused by the body? Is it rejection of the implant by your own body? Is it irregularity of your skin after liposuction procedure due to not following the instructions correctly?
1) How do you know that it was not your own physiology, the way your body heals, or the way your own body reacts to stitches, or the way your body genetically is programmed to scar that did not cause the unwanted results (please read the sections below)?
2) How do you know that it was not your poor way of providing post-operative care that did not contribute to the results?
3) If you truly were "disfigured", why didn't you sue the doctor? When you brought a malpractice claim against the doctor, did you win? The ANSWER must be NO, since no one has ever been able to prove clinical shortcomings in a malpractice clinical claim against Dr. New Me!
RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PATIENTS TO SELF EDUCATE:
It is every patient’s responsibility to educate himself/herself adequately before surgery.
They must educate themselves about the limitations of a cosmetic surgeon's abilities in performing the procedure that they are interested in (in other words, is the surgeon truly experienced, qualified and capable of performing the procedure the patient is interested in?), the limitations of the particular cosmetic surgery procedure in terms of its results (is the procedure that the patient considering able to provide the patient with the outcome and results that the patient is looking for?), the potential known, possible and rare complications of the surgery they are about to have (and how often have any of those occure d in the particular surgeon's practice, under his care?), and then they would be responsible for the outcome of the choice to have it or not after all (when all this information is obtained and the knowledge is gathered, you must honestly consider all this information, compare all the experiences of your consultations with the various surgeons you have met and have your final decision made, knowing you are the person that is ultimately responsible for the outcome of the procedure you are about to have!).
There is no way to choose to have cosmetic surgery, put your totally healthy body under the knife, taking all types of risks electively, only gaining all the benefits yourself, while blaming everyone else if something goes wrong! No! That is not how it works!
Cosmetic surgery is a very serious decision! You are deciding to put your very healthy body through this very risky process! Of course there are excellent reasons to do it, when they are the right reasons! But you must be sure to make your decisions based on one of those reasons! When you have made your decisions based on the correct reasons, then you have to take full responsibility for following every instruction that your surgeon has provided you!
You, your surgeon, and his entire healthcare team are part of the same orchestra. Together, with the right goals and outcome in mind, you will most definately have the maximum chance of ultimate satisfaction from the procedure! You have to work as a part of this team that the surgeon has put togehter, to create a seamless operation that produces a surgical magic like a breathtaking symphony! Take full responsibility, learn your part and enjoy the process! The outcome will be worth all the effort!
TAKING FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE OUTCOME:
If they do not want to take the risk of having any of the known potential complications of the surgery, they should not have the surgery whatsoever. Patients must be willing to take full responsibility for their decision and their part, which is extensive and very serious.
It is a very serious decision to have cosmetic surgery. It is taking a perfectly healthy body, and putting it through invasive, risky procedures with all types of known and potentially unknown and even possibly unexpected complications in the hopes of having a better subjective appearance. Better appearance than whom, and in whose eyes, and by what standards?
When you think about it, it is a pretty risky undertaking, hoping for something uncertain!
Cosmetic surgery is unfortunately a type of surgery that is prone to all types of issues that could result in patients being less than totally happy at the end, despite a surgeon’s excellent work.
Outside of what the surgeon and the staff tell a patient, it is the responsibility of the patient to do his/her own research, educate himself/herself, take total responsibility for his/her part of the equation, and not to blame others for his/her own lack of education, knowledge, or irresponsibility.
HAPPINESS IS NOT THE GOAL!
There are a multitude of issues that result in cosmetic surgery patients, despite the excellent work of their surgeons, not ultimately being perfectly satisfied with their outcomes.
The outcome of a cosmetic surgery procedure depends on a multitude of factors besides the cosmetic surgeon’s capabilities. I did my absolute best for every patient, but I also on occasion had patients who had less than their ideal outcomes.
These factors include but are not limited to the nature of the procedure being performed, its level of complexity, the pre-existing scarring in the area of surgery, the patient's predisposition to scarring, the patient’s genetics, the patient's physiology such as immune system function (natural defense of the body against infections), patient’s possible allergy to suture, surgical tapes or implanted materials, preexisting medical conditions, quality of the patient’s diet and nutritional status, patient’s use of herbs, alcohol, drugs, and tobacco, patients not following pre and post-operative instructions correctly, potential accidents or untoward occurrences that could jeopardize the surgery or surgical site during or after surgery, other individuals’ actions other than those of the surgeon’s, errors by other surgeons or medical staff, and many more.
On the other hand, Cosmetic surgery is very different than most other surgeries in one distinct aspect.
While most surgeries are intended to treat pathology, and once performed, there is no subjectivity for the most part, cosmetic surgery patients’ level of satisfaction depends on how the patient feels about the results of the surgeries, and it is extremely subjective.
THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEES!
While cosmetic surgeons cannot ever guarantee results, and how the surgeries will heal, or even if the patients will be happy with the results, some patients will never be happy no matter how great the results are.
Minimally invasive procedures are just as much “real surgeries” as are open heart surgeries.
All these promotional attempts to downplay endoscopic procedures, small incision procedures, and liposuction surgery, as if they are not risky surgery may make it sound like they are not “real surgeries”, hence give patients a false sense of security.
I hear a lot of conversation about minimally invasive procedures being safe, as if "not real surgeries". This has resulted in patients taking them less seriously, especially liposuction surgeries. Liposuction with its small incisions is still a major procedure. There are hundreds of tunnels being made under the skin which are not visible to your eyes and the skin is undermined. Undermined means that the skin is almost being separated from the underlying tissues short of having fibrous connections, nerves and blood vessels still attached to it. Never the less, the skin is extremely volunerable and it can easily be irreversably damaged. Additionally becuase of all the tunneling that has occured under the sking layer, there are empty spaces in which fluid can collect. Due to the injury, the lymphatic drainage is also not as it was before. The skin has to retract back to return to its original shape except now there is a relatively large volume of soft tissue missing from under the skin. The skin now needs to shrink to ake up for this missing volume of tissue.
This can expose you to substantial risks. There are no minor procedures. Once you have an incision, or any scratch or break in your skin, which is the protection of the body against foreign infections, or any break in the skin, it leaves you vulnerable to infections.
What is extremely dangerous is if you have foreign objects such as permanent stitches, implants, or any other foreign surgical objects in the vicinity of the infection which the bacteria will contaminate and hide, it becomes extremely challenging to irradicate the infection from the tissues immediately surrounding these objects as they become a source of harboring the bacteria. You must be extremely careful to follow every instruction of your surgeon to prevent an infection, especially if you have any of these foreign objects barried in your tissues, and that is the case for life. For example, a simple tooth infection can result in having the bacteria become blood born and next thing you know it could land around your breast implants, stitches, or other foreign subcutaneous objects, resulting in all types of problems. You can not take anything for granted when comes to cosmetic surgery. You must educate yourself thoroughly!
WHY DO YOU WANT TO HAVE COSMETIC SURGERY?
DISCUSS YOUR PLANS OF HAVING COSMETIC SURGERY WITH YOUR PSYCHOTHERAPIST. OR BETTER YET, AN EXPERT, MAKE SURE YOUR VIEW OF REALITY MATCHES THAT OF OTHERS! ARE YOU SURE YOU LOOK OLD, FAT, UGLY, SAD, ETC?
It is extremely important that you know the WHY behind the reason for your interest in having cosmetic surgery!
I am talking about the real WHY! The true reason that you are looking to have your totally healthy body invaded, cut and put through such enormously risky procedures for? Whay are you trying to gain from this or what are you trying to avoid? Make sure your reasons, your justifications make logical sense! If you are not sure, it is worth the money to get a second opinion! I am not talking about the second opinion from a friend! I am talking about a professional who specializes in this. A psychiatrist or Psychologist or a Neutral Expert Cosmetic Surgeon! You must be sure that you are making the right decisions for the right reasons! Discuss your plans of having cosmetic surgey with your expert. Make sure your view of reality, the reasoning and your risk/benefit/alternatives are realistic and make logical sense!
There are a percentage of the population that are not necessarily one-hundred-percent realistic when it comes to themselves! They look in the mirror and see something else! Literally or proverbially! This is a fact! Unfortunately, this lack of mirroring of reality is a huge problem! Are you sure you are too old, too fat, too ugly, too sad looking? Are you sure the things that are going on in your life have anything to do with your appearance at all?
For example, there are those patients who have a condition called Body Dysmorphic Disorder who may look in the mirror and see themselves as being overweight or fat and seek cosmetic surgery for that purpose. These individuals in fact may have a small pocket of fat in the lower area of their abdomen and they may have a liposuction procedure to remove this small amount of fat. However, after the fat is removed, and the patient's abdomen is washboard flat, the patient still looks in the mirror and still sees a fat person. This disconnection from reality causes a huge problem for the patient and the surgeon. Neither the patient will ever be happy, nor the surgeon can ever make the patient happy.
MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE SURGERY ONLY FOR YOUR OWN SATISFACTION!
Another huge problematic situation arises when someone decides to have a cosmetic procedure for a secondary reason other than the primary reason which should be the actual result of the cosmetic surgery.
For example, imagine a woman who is growing older, and finds out that her husband is cheating on her with his young secretary. She may decide that if she has a bunch of cosmetic surgeries on her face to rejuvenate herself, he is going to find her attractive again and stop cheating. After all the cosmetic surgery is done, the husband continues to be the cheating scumbag that he is.
However, the wife may suddenly develop a belief that the reason the husband is still cheating is because she has a few residual lines and wrinkles, she does not look young enough and that’s because the surgeries were not done good enough.
(She may even claim that the reason her husband is still cheating is that she does not look young enough, and that is the surgeon’s fault! -- Poor surgeon! LOL! Although this is meant in good humor, you would be surprised how often, ultimately everything could get blamed on the surgeon!)
Unfortunately, as experienced and seasoned experts, surgeons are extremely busy! They do not have the time or the responsibility to conduct a psychological assessment to decide if the patient is one hundred percent realisitc in terms of his/her expectations, if she/he is making the decisions for the right psychological reasons or if there are any underlying psychological concerns! Given adequate time, almost all experienced cosmetic surgeons can determine if patients demonstrate evidence of psychological "red-flags" that would require further professional psychotherapy, and counseling prior to surgery. However, it is the patient who has to stop surgeon-shopping once there is such a concern! The problem is that in most cases, these patients keep looking until they find someone who ends up doing the surgery!
Years ago, there was a certain global star who was a patient of a practice in Beverly Hills where I was training. My mentor became aware of this global star's infatuation with his nose and his desire to have a "White Nose"! Reportedly, by the time he had had his consultaion in our practice he had had several nose surgeries already. His surgery was refused and he was turned away. He was willing to pay over one hundred thousand dollars for the surgery! Never the less, although he could not receive his desired surgery at our practice, he ended up continuing his doctor-shopping and eventually he ended up having surgery at another Beverly Hills practice, and then several others. He looked a whole lot better before, without a "White Nose", whatever that meant! He looked wonderful and normal before!
HAVING REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
CHOOSING BREAST IMPLANTS / GETTING BREAST AUGMENTATION AND DECIDING ON THE CORRECT SIZE
CHOOSING BREAST IMPLANTS / GETTING BREAST AUGMENTATION AND DECIDING ON THE CORRECT SIZE
Another issue is unrealistic expectations. For example, an individual may seek to have cosmetic surgery expecting to look like a certain favorite actress to whom she thinks she has a certain amount of resemblance. That is an unrealistic expectation! This is most likely not going to happen and she will most likely be disappointed.
KNOWING THE REALISTC RANGE OF POSSIBLE OUTCOME OF EACH PROCEDURE
So, is it a realistic expectation if a patient expects a certain amount of improvement after surgery that is above and beyond the realistic realm of possibility of the procedure?
Looking at the before and after pictures, and in the opinion of everyone else looking at them, the result of surgery may be excellent, but not to the "level of the expectation" of the patient since the patient's expectations are higher than that of everyone else's.
In this situation, the patient will not be happy, and it is because the patient believes that the surgeon did not do a "good enough job" of giving her the results to her "expected levels"!
CHOOSING BREAST IMPLANTS / GETTING BREAST AUGMENTATION AND DECIDING ON THE CORRECT SIZE
CHOOSING BREAST IMPLANTS / GETTING BREAST AUGMENTATION AND DECIDING ON THE CORRECT SIZE
CHOOSING BREAST IMPLANTS / GETTING BREAST AUGMENTATION AND DECIDING ON THE CORRECT SIZE
Another situation is when patients decide on one procedure, and then they change their mind after the procedure is done!
For example, a tall, large-framed patient may decide that against the surgeon’s advice, she does not want to have 600cc breast implants that the surgeon feels fit her frame. She disagrees with the opinion of the surgeon because she does not want to look “like a prostitute”, against his advice, she chooses 400cc implants instead.
Hence, in her medical record, her choice of 400cc breast implants will be indicated.
Weeks later she comes in to have surgery, she does not recall much that has occurred in the consultation with her surgeon. She will undergo surgery. The surgery will go well. After everything is said and done, she heals well, and the swelling is gone. She suddenly realizes that her breasts have not changed enough after all, and they are still too small for her frame, and she is not happy.
Now, there is a problem. Even though she was warned by the surgeon ahead of time and she did not listen, she blames the surgeon for her dissatisfaction and for her "small breasts".
KNOW IF YOU HAVE GENETIC RISK OF SCAR FORMATION AHEAD OF TIME
Another situation is when patients have a predisposition to forming scars or keloids. These individuals often end up with unsightly scars at the incision lines. These scars usually end up diminishing the cosmetic value of the surgeries to the patients, and perhaps to their significant others.
Certain genetics and ethnicities, such as dark-skinned individuals, are known to be predisposed to hypertrophic scars and keloid formation. These genetic and ethnic groups include those with darker skin color individuals like African Americans, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, Arabs, and others.
ALLERGY TO VARIOUS CHEMICALS, KNOWN OR UNKNOWN
Another situation could be when individuals may be allergic to suture (stitches) or implant material. They may develop inflammation, scarring, infection, wound breakdown, or all types of complications jeopardizing the outcome of the surgery.
Reaction to implants, such as capsule formation and capsular contracture could be an example of this kind of body's reaction to a foreign object (i.e. breast implants).
NOT GETTING THE WOUNDS WET
Taking a shower or bath too early after surgery against the surgeon’s advice may result in bacteria as contaminants finding their way into the wound and causing infections which eventually may jeopardize the results of the surgery. Imagine a wick, soaking fluid into it. So too, the stitches would function as wicks, soaking in contaminated bath water, and the bacteria find their way into the bdy under the skin layers of the wound and this provides an amazing environment for these bacteria to multiply. Within a very short time, the patient would be suffering from a whoping infection. The disaster is many folds worse when there are foreign objects such as implants, sutures, hernia meshes or artificial joints that could get infected! That is when the disaster could turn life-threatening, all because the patient decided that against the surgeon's advice, she/he wanted to take a shower/bath to feel fresh and clean! An act that in its face seems very benign and worthy, but only when one is looking at it as an uneducated patient! An educated patient however, knows how self-destructive, and potentially deadly this simple action can be!
YOU MUST BE FOLLOWING EVERY INSTRUCTION PERFECTLY!
Not following the instructions on how to prepare for the surgery, take care of the wounds or drains, take the antibiotic, or any other preoperative or postoperative instructions may jeopardize the results as well!
IN THOSE PATIENTS WITH A GENETIC PREDISPOSITION TO SCAR FORMATION, WHO ARE A LARGE PERCENTAGE OF HUMAN POPULATION, POOR COSMETIC SURGERY RESULTS COULD BE EXTREMELY LIKELY.
Unsightly scarring is especially terrible in those who have liposuction and other types of cosmetic surgeries such as abdominoplasties and facelifts where the scars are under the skin and in the subcutaneous tissues. The overgrowth of the scar tissues, although not visible, could cause deformities of the skin overlying these scar tissues. These deformities could include but not be limited to dimpling, indentations, retractions, lumps, bumps, and irregularities, among many others.
EVEN THOUGH YOU DO NOT SEE LARGE INCISIONS, LIPOSUCTION IS AN EXTREMELY SERIOUS SURGERY! IF YOU NEGLECT YOUR SURGEON'S ADVICE OR DO NOT FOLLOW EVERY INSTRUCTION ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PERFECTLY, YOU COULD CAUSE A DISASTER!
Another issue is specific to liposuction and fat transfer. These two procedures are magical and amazing. They are transformative, they can change one’s body appearance completely, creating a perfect hourglass feminine figure in the ideal candidate with no complications. Just like facelifts, nose surgeries, facial procedures, breast surgeries, and other body contouring surgeries, I have performed hundreds of these procedures as well and have had hundreds of ecstatic patients who have kept on referring patients over the years. They can change patients’ lives for the better. But the challenges are also quite concerning at times, and most of the time, they are caused by explainable physiological reasons.
LIPOSUCTION & FAT TRANSFER IRREGULARITIES
When tumescent liposuction is performed, tumescent fluid which is a combination of Lidocaine, an anesthetic, and Epinephrine in Saline is injected into the fatty tissues under the skin in the deeper fatty subcutaneous layer which is held to the skin and muscles in the deeper layers by fibrous tissues. Then using various cannulas, the fat is removed. While doing this, hundreds of hollow tunnels are created where the fat used to be. After the fat is removed the patient is instructed to wear tight liposuction garments that are meant to collapse these hollow tunnels preventing the accumulation of fluids and allowing the skin overlying the area of surgery to shrink and create a beautiful and tight contour according to the contour of the special liposuction garment. If the patients fail to wear the correct garments, for the correct amount of time, in the right way, and fail to follow the exact post-operative instructions, of course, they will not get the ideal cosmetic results.
IN THOSE PATIENTS WITH A GENETIC PREDISPOSITION TO SCAR FORMATION, WHO ARE A LARGE PERCENTAGE OF HUMAN POPULATION, POOR COSMETIC SURGERY RESULTS COULD BE EXTREMELY LIKELY.
Unsightly scarring is especially terrible in those who have liposuction and other types of cosmetic surgeries such as abdominoplasties and facelifts where the scars are under the skin and in the subcutaneous tissues. The overgrowth of the scar tissues, although not visible, could cause deformities of the skin overlying these scar tissues. These deformities could include but not be limited to dimpling, indentations, retractions, lumps, bumps, and irregularities, among many others.
EVEN THOUGH YOU DO NOT SEE LARGE INCISIONS, LIPOSUCTION IS AN EXTREMELY SERIOUS SURGERY! IF YOU NEGLECT YOUR SURGEON'S ADVICE OR DO NOT FOLLOW EVERY INSTRUCTION ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PERFECTLY, YOU COULD CAUSE A DISASTER!
Another issue is specific to liposuction and fat transfer. These two procedures are magical and amazing. They are transformative, they can change one’s body appearance completely, creating a perfect hourglass feminine figure in the ideal candidate with no complications. Just like facelifts, nose surgeries, facial procedures, breast surgeries, and other body contouring surgeries, I have performed hundreds of these procedures as well and have had hundreds of ecstatic patients who have kept on referring patients over the years. They can change patients’ lives for the better. But the challenges are also quite concerning at times, and most of the time, they are caused by explainable physiological reasons.
LIPOSUCTION & FAT TRANSFER IRREGULARITIES
When tumescent liposuction is performed, tumescent fluid which is a combination of Lidocaine, an anesthetic, and Epinephrine in Saline is injected into the fatty tissues under the skin in the deeper fatty subcutaneous layer which is held to the skin and muscles in the deeper layers by fibrous tissues. Then using various cannulas, the fat is removed. While doing this, hundreds of hollow tunnels are created where the fat used to be. After the fat is removed, the patient is instructed to wear tight liposuction garments that are meant to collapse these hollow tunnels preventing the accumulation of fluids and allowing the skin overlying the area of surgery to shrink and create a beautiful and tight contour according to the contour of the special liposuction garment. If the patients fail to wear the correct garments, for the correct amount of time, in the right way, and fail to follow the exact post-operative instructions, of course, they will not get the ideal cosmetic results.
THERE ARE NO MINOR SURGERIES! EVERY SURGERY IS MAJOR!
An ideal candidate for liposuction and fat transfer is a young person with a small amount of fat in a specific area, perfectly healthy and tight skin, with no stretch marks, who is mentally 100% normal. This individual must have educated him/herself completely, understanding the nature of the procedure that he/she is about to undergo, its risks, benefits, alternatives, its limitations, and he/she must have completely reasonable expectations. This individual must listen to the surgeon’s preoperative and postoperative instructions well. He/she must follow them 100% perfectly. This individual must not have a predisposition to excess scar formation, and his/her physiology must be 100% perfectly conducive to excellent healing.
LIPOSUCTION COMPLICATIONS IN WOMEN WITH PREVIOUS PREGNANCY & ETC.
In most patients, the skin overlying the fat cells being removed is already stretched due to excess fat, previous pregnancies, and additionally has injuries and damages to the deep layer of skin such as stretch-marks, surgical scars, and others which would then result in poor retraction after liposuction. The failure of skin to retract perfectly and smoothly after liposuction would most likely result in hanging, loose, wrinkly, or unsightly skin after surgery, especially if the person has folds of skin and fat left behind and this creates indentations in the skin areas repeatedly for long periods of times when the individual in sitting position.
SKIN IRREGULARITIES
This could be much worse if the individual is prone to scar formation, as stated above, then deep bands of scars will be holding parts of the skin down to the deeper layers of the tissues, creating severe irregularities. No matter how skillfully the procedure has been done, there is nothing the surgeon can do about how the patient's physiology heals. That is a huge disappointment for a perfectionist like me, who loves people and wants them to always be happy, pleased, and satisfied with the work I have done. I always give 100%, and often go way beyond the call of duty, just because even if my patients can't afford certain things, I do the work anyway, because I want my results to be excellent. It is just who I am and how I feel about my work and how I always do things. However, the fact that I am not in control of a patient's healing is the most frustrating part of cosmetic surgery. That is a huge variable that I can't control, and ultimately it is the variable that controls almost 90% of the outcome.
LUMPS & BUMPS
Additionally, fat cells that remain under the skin are not all implanted immediately after surgery. They are healthy fat cells that are mobile and floating around. They move around under the skin in the deep tissues through the deep channels that the cannulas have created and eventually depending on the patient's body contours and folds, movements and clothing post-operative garments, and many other factors, get trapped and implanted under the skin. Once the fat cells are implanted, they do not implant equally and smoothly. They may congregate in one area a whole lot more than another area, and as the person gains a bit of weight again after surgery, suddenly, those areas where the fat cells had congregated would balloon up into a ball of fat (LUMPS AND BUMPS). If there are many of these balls and irregularities, intermixed with the irregularities of hanging skin due to lose skin secondary to childbirth and deep scars, the patient's post-liposuction results can potentially be less than cosmetic.
TOUCH UP SURGERY USUALLY IS NOT SUCCESSFUL
The problem is that the surgeon could attempt to touch up some of these balls of fat and remove them or smooth things out secondarily in a second surgery, but the patient may never get the results she is expecting. This is one of the curses of cosmetic surgery.
THE CHALLENGE OF COMBINING LIPOSUCTION WITH FAT TRANSFER
When you combine liposuction with fat transfer, as is a common procedure, again, another challenge presents itself. Fat cells that get transferred may not all survive equally, as much as desired or expected at all. In addition, don't forget those patients that form extra scars. In those patients who are prone to forming scars, at a later time, the scars that form may pull the skin down and again cause in dentations and irregularities as well as dimpling and poor cosmetic results.
VOLUME LIMIT OF LIPOSUCTION & LIMITS OF PHYSIOLOGY
Another issue is that there is a limit as to how much fat can be removed safely. There is a legal and ethical as well as professional limit as to how much fat can be removed in the operating room. This is not a lot of fat. However, often, especially obese patients, expect the surgeons to remove a whole lot more than the legal limit despite how many times the surgeon explains what the legal limit is, and how many times he/she helps explain what that limit may look like in her body, the patient may imagine that amount to represent a different outcome than the reality.
This is a huge potential problem. Even though before the surgery, the patients may sign all the consents and documents and even agree with the surgeon and indicate that they understand the limits, but in their mind and heart, they are hoping that they will get the outcome they are imagining, which is why they are having the surgery in the first place! This is a set up for a disaster! Regardless of how much the surgeon tries and how great the outcome is, the chances are extremely high that the patient will not get the results he/she has imagined.
Same thing applies to the fat transfer patients. These patients who have fat transfer may not have the exact outcomes that they were expecting no matter how skillfully the procedure was performed, all because, during the healing process, the patient's physiology is in control and the surgeon is not.
EXAMPLE OF A TYPICAL CASE:
EXAMPLE OF A TYPICAL CASE:
EXAMPLE OF A TYPICAL CASE:
Now imagine an obese African American woman that you can imagine is 75 pounds or more overweight, has had multiple childbirths, has a lot of stretch marks and loose skin. Her skin is hanging and has folds of fat. She is prone to scar formation, has surgical scars, and does not listen to preoperative instructions, regardless of how many times the staff and the surgeon explain things, she does not pay attention to the details and she does not even bother to go and do her own investigation and educate herself, read, watch YouTube videos, have a consultation with other surgeons, nor does she have the level of understanding or the education to even understand all the idiosyncrasies of the surgeries she is about to have, and she does not wish to take personal responsibility for the potential complications and the outcome should they come to pass, instead decides to cast blame on others if they happen.
She does not read the preoperative and postoperative instructions, and due to her limited education may not understand or choose to understand their seriousness. In the instructions, the surgeon instructs her to purchase two identical liposuction garments and the size is indeicated. She tried the garment on prior to surgery and the staff made sure it was the right fit! That is how they gave her the isntructions as to the size of garment to purchase!
However, the patient decides on the day after surgery that since blood tinged fluid is draining from the wounds after liposuction, the garment is bloody, and she decides to remove it. She hates the garment as she feels he body has swollen and it is too tight now. She feels it is too uncomfortable and it is too restrictive, so against her surgeon's advice she decides to remove her liposction garment. Instead, she wears her dance outfit that looks "just like the liposuction garment" because it looks "just like the liposuction garment", plus she only bought one garment from the store, becuse they were way too expensive as the dance outfit was much cheaper, and she does not understand why they are selling the liposuction garments for so much more.
Since she only has one liposuction garment, and she hates it, and she prefers her dance outfit, she prefers it because it is “more comfortable”, she puts that on instead! The problem is that she does not ask her surgeon's opinion! She does not communicae with her surgeon! She does not understand the medical science behind the purpose of the tight liposuction garment and all the disasterous rsisks as well as the cosmetic disasters that she exposed herself to by making the decisions she made!
Liposuction garments are called compression garments. Their job is to provide surgical compression in a controlled and steady manor, in order to tamponade and prevent homerrhage. In other words, they compress the skin against the underlying tissues, so tightly that this causes all the tunnels to collapse and as a result the excess controlled pressure prevents blood acoomulation in the empty spaces of the tunnels under the skin. When she removes the garment, and leaves it off for an extended period of time, the spaces that are now tunneled and emptied out, devid of tissue, start to fillup with blood, and oozing of blood into these spaces, called third spacing will cause a huge loss of volume of fluid and also it is like hemorrhae as red blood cells of the blood are also leaked into the spaces and the individual could end up going to to homorrhagic shock, like in the case of someone who has been shot by a bullet and is bleeding to death! If she is saved by her great surgeon, as in ninety nine percent of cases, despite themselves, these patients are eventually saved by the heros that their surgeons truly are, then she ends up being upset because she expected to have beautiful curves, tight-smooth skin, and round, beautiful buttocks like her much younger sister, and she is extremely upset with her surgeon that she does not have ideal results. Her skin does not heal perfectly, the scars under the skin cause her skin to retract, and the fat cells implant in clusters, causing lumps and bumps, and as she gains weight again, they create irregular contours. She ends up with irregular dimpling and all the things described above in the previous sections.
Of course, the legal limit of fat removed is not nearly enough in her opinion for what she expected her surgeon to remove. She wanted her surgeon to remove enough fat “so that she could at least see a difference”.
She feels cheated and upset. She paid all that money, not only she did not get thin, and beautiful like her sister, but she now looked worse. She goes around and writes on all social media, complains everywhere, tells her upset to everyone, comes back demanding her money back, and on top of that demanding a repeat surgery for free, and still after a free touch-up surgery, after which she gets some improvement, she goes around and continues to bad-mouth the surgeon and accuses him of all types of things and damages his/her good name and reputation.
Now what should the surgeon do? What could he/she have done? Prior to surgery, the patient claimed she understood all the risks, benefits, and alternatives and signed all the consents. She took all the preoperative and postoperative instructions home with her. She was given instructions about where to purchase the two liposuction garments: one for the day of surgery, and one for backup. After an excellent and eventless, perfect procedure, here we are!!!
Many similar situations as described in the example above occur in the practice of cosmetic surgery, frequently. The point is, no matter what the variation, the surgeon could do his job perfectly well, and still, he can’t prevent all the problems, right?
CONCLUSION:
EXAMPLE OF A TYPICAL CASE:
EXAMPLE OF A TYPICAL CASE:
FACTS:
1. ALL SURGERIES (COSMETIC OR NOT) WILL RESULT IN A CERTAIN PERCENT OF COMPLICATIONS!
2. EVERY SURGERY (COSMETIC OR NOT) HAS THE RISK OF THE COMPLICATION OF BLEEDING, INFECTION, SCAR FORMATION, NERVE INJURY, SENSORY CHANGES, COSMETIC CHANGES AND CHANGES IN THE COSMETIC FORMS OF TISSUES (ALSO CALLED DEFORMITIES)!
3. COMPLICATIONS IN COSMETIC SURGERY AS IN ANY SPECIALTY OF SURGERY ARE INEVITABLE.
PERFORMING SURGERY WILL RESULT IN COMPLICATIONS NO MATTER HOW FANTASTIC OF A GREAT SURGEON ONE IS! THE ONLY WAY TO NOT HAVE COMPLICATIONS IS TO NOT PERFORM SURGERY.
BY DEFINITION, IN THE BEST OF CIRCUMSTANCES, PERFORMING ANY SURGERY, THERE ARE A CERTAIN PERCENT RISK OF INFECTION, SCARRING, NERVE INJURY, BLEEDING, AND LESS THAN IDEAL COSMETIC RESULTS!
THAT MEANS IF A SURGEON DOES THOUSANDS OF SURGERIES, THESE COMPLICATIONS ARE BOUND TO SHOW UP, AND THAT IS UNDER THE BEST OF CIRCUMSTANCES!
NOW WHAT IF THE CIRCUMSTANCES ARE LESS THAN IDEAL? --What are a few examples of less than ideal circumstances?
Among many of the preventative methods, to minimize complications, perhaps theoretically a couple of achievable methods of prevention of some complications are:
FOR THE SURGEON,
Surgeon's careful patient-selection; procedure choice selection; educating the patients well about the preoperative and post-operative risks, and care plan; expectation management & under promising, among other surgical practice decision making routines.... and for
FOR THE PATIENT,
Patients to help prevent some of the complications they should spend a great deal of time and invet effort in selecting the best surgeon based on rapport, connection, professionalism and qualifications, in addition to taking full responsibility for their self-education.They must at least learn about the procedures, their facts, benefits, alternatitves, risks of the procedures, their causes of various complications, ways of preventing these complications and the chances of their occurrence in addition to preoperative as well as postoperative care self-education.
Research your plastic surgeon. Make sure your plastic surgeon has the proper licensure, training, experience, physical abilities and board certification.
You should also make sure that the facility where your surgery will take place is properly accredited, equipped and staffed.
You should ask your plastic surgeon about their experience with the specific procedure you would like to have. Although a plastic surgeon may have over thirty years of Plastic Surgery experience, it does not necessarily mean that he has enough experience in the specific procedure you are interested in.
Make sure that the procedure you are asking for is appropriate for your body type, genetics, and lifestyle. You can also ask your surgeon about his previous rate of complications with the procedure you are interested in having and how it compares to the national average, and if your situation puts you at any higher risk of complications.
Be prepared to take notes and ask if you can record the visit.
Never hide any information from your surgeon and make sure you always answer all your surgeon's questions honestly.
When during your initial consultation process for cosmetic surgery, your surgeon and the staff ask you about your medical history, answer honestly about all your past medical conditions, current medical conditions and issues, past surgeries, health issues, symptoms, concerns, medications, or supplements that you take so your surgeon will have the most information about any possible complications.
Your social life is also extremely important, as is your lifestyle. Be honest even if you feel embarrassed to share.
Do not be shy! It is a must to be honest and transparent. After all, you are about to risk your life, plus if you feel that you can't confide in the surgeon you are about to have surgery with, ask yourself if he/she is the right surgeon for you?
This one factor can save your life! Trust your gut feeling!
Learning More About Dr. New Me of Beverly Hills!
GRATTITUDE & APPRETIATION!
I have always done my absolute best under any circumstance, given my limitations, and of course that included as a cosmetic surgeon. However, despite our best efforts, we all occasionally make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Making mistakes is human. As leaders, we must notice our mistakes, accept our faults, and apologize for them if they involve others. We must learn from our mistakes, and not make the same mistakes again. The obstacle to admitting fault is usually our ego. I have a huge one, which is as big as that of most surgeons. However, I would rather conquer mine, and apologize. If "i" have made a mistake that affected you as my beloved patients, I sincerely and humbly apologize for any of my shortcomings as a human. I appreciate you for bestowing your trust in me. Performing thousands of surgeries, was fulfilling the greatest dream of my life of becoming a successful and prominent cosmetic surgeon in Beverly Hills which became possible with your love, kindness, and support, and for that, I would forever be thankful to each one of you.
Additionally, I have had the privilege of working with many amazing colleagues in my career. There are too many to mention, many of whom are already retired, or no longer with us. The late Dr. Bernard Koire was a legend in Beverly Hills. He was one of the greatest plastic surgeons who practiced in Beverly Hills for over fifty years. I had the privilege of completing my first year of Cosmetic Surgery Fellowship under his tutelage in Beverly Hills, on Bedford Drive. I followed that with two more years with Dr. Morton Mazaheri, another world-renowned Plastic and Reconstructive, Cosmetic Surgeon and worked with him for several years after. He is also a legend. The late Dr. Mark Berman who was also a legend was a true leader, a pioneer, and a man who always wanted to push the envelop of science, inventing, teaching, and lecturing globally, doing his best to make the field of Cosmetic Surgery a better, more respectable and legitimate field. My great friend and generous friend, Dr. Robert Yoho, an amazing Cosmetic Surgeon, a scientist with a huge hunger for learning, teaching, and most importantly a truly great human being, who is a selfless philanthropist. Dr. John Yermian, a fantastic Plastic, Cosmetic Surgeon, is a man that I am proud to call my friend. He is a human being with a heart as big as the world. Generous, kind, giving and caring. He is the true essence of the word "healer"! My great friend, Dr. Joel Aronowitz, who has been one of the long-standing top leaders of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery of Cedars Sinai Hospital. A man who works tirelessly to care for his patients with humble kindness, and gentle professionalism. My great friend, the living legend, Cosmetic, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon Dr. Ronald Strahan, one of UCLA's top surgeons, who has voluntarily served tens of thousands of patients arounds the world as a service to humanity. There are too many other friends and colleagues with whom I have had the privilege of working, and who have touched my life in many ways, and for all those many reasons, I owe them all a huge debt of gratitude as well. Without them, my dream of becoming a successful Cosmetic Surgeon in Beverly Hills would never have become a reality. Cosmetic Surgery was my life's greatest initial dream, and my number one passion. My "First Mountain" in life. So, in addition to the above patients, friends and colleagues, I must thank all those who in some way contributed to my ability to successfully practice Cosmetic Surgery in Beverly Hills. You all made it possible for me to experience some of the happiest years of my life before these current ones, and for that I truly thank each one of you. It was as if, as an “eagle”, I experienced flight, and got to soar and land on the top of my “First Mountain” thanks to you all. But God, often, has His hand in our lives, and has his plans for us. I feel as if, He wanted me to “fly off” that First Mountain, so that I had to take flight again, towards my “Second Mountain” and "Third"!
I am truly happy on the path that God has chosen for me, and I feel truly blessed to have been chosen for it. I know there is a great deal of growth ahead of me. I know I will continue to be humbled along the way, and without a doubt, there will be unwanted human errors. I will do my best to minimize them, but there will be a few, hopefully, rare mistakes, nonother less, despite all my future efforts. However, like all others, I am also inflicted by my humanness. I hereby apologize for my occasional shortcoming's, ahead of time! As a result of grace of God, and His kind wishes, although they were disguised at the time, and the experiences were extremely painful for me, I have grown tremendously. I have learned numerous lessons which short of these experiences I would not have learned. I am thankful for the lessons, and for the growth that they have gifted me. As a proverbial "eagle", my “wings” have grown much stronger and larger. I am mentally, emotionally, and spiritually much healthier, stronger and mature now. I feel more confident, and I know that I am a wiser leader. Although far from perfect, I am working on myself every day. I know and I appreciate the value of what God has been trying to teach me. I have learned how fragile life really is. Losing Dr. Simoni, a younger, up and coming Facial Plastic Surgeon in Beverly Hills who died during the same hospitalization as I, when I also was in the ICU with COVID-19 as he was, I realized how fragile life is, and how I could have, as the ER Physician predicted, died too. We lost Dr. Mark Berman, a healthy and health conscious, relatively young Cosmetic Surgeon a couple of years ago to an untimely death, as we have many others. In the last few years, although I could have died, for the grace of God, I have not. I know he kept me alive for a good reason, as the likelihood of dying were pretty high under the circumstances. I survived, I wholeheartedly thank God for that, and also for not being defeated. On the contrary, the opposite, I feel truly blessed. I find it necessary to thank God for sparing my life, and carrying me through the "Fire" into "Safety, and Glory of the Present". Experiencing the achievement of the “Second Mountain” would certainly be an amazing blessing. An achievement worth all the efforts, and I am certainly excited and thankful for the opportunity. My "Second Mountain" is working in a field of endeavor that allows all my inner talents, in addition to those that are seen through the medical and surgical practice, shine through. I am on my "Second Mountain" but eyeing my "Third Mountain"! "First Mountain" is still part of my territory. I did not abandon it to the "enemy"! Yet, I am on a much larger, greener, taller mountain! I believe, I can serve a greater number of people standing on this mountain, than I ever could, standing on my "First Mountain"! I believe that this is where I am meant to serve Him for now! So, I will!
FAKE NEWS, FRAUD, LIES, DEFAMATION --VS. --FREEDOM OF SPEECH
WHY CAN'T YOU SUE THEM IF THEY ARE ABUSING THE FIRST AMENDMENT FOR PERSONAL GAIN?
ARE THESE REVIEWS? BY WHOSE STANDARDS? Reading the "Reviews", watching the "News" and reading the news "Articles", one will notice a pattern that there are those who under the guise of wanting to warn others, and to make sure that the public do not get hurt, and to help them stay safe, they take the authoritarian position to spread false information in the public domain, which is then automatically protected by the First Amendment as Freedom of Speech dictates! While they are covertly showing the world how toxic of human being they really are who have no problem hurting the subject, about whom they have made up all these lies, defamations, calling them names, making false claims about them online, assassinating their characters, destroying their reputations, putting them out of business, stopping their ability to earn a living, or embarrassing them to the point that they would be ashamed to raise their head in the public, they publicly act as if they are heroes who are doing all this for the sake of the public!
Now if these types of acts are not likely cyberbullying-criminal, malignant, vicious, tortuous, hateful, prejudiced, terrible, un-Godly and utterly wrong, I do not know what they are! They are not only most likely tortuous acts of intentional defamation, infliction of emotional distress, interference with competitive advantage, fraud, and many other such horrible respective things, but they are also hateful, painful, and wrong.
This is how I would like to respond to those who have taken it upon themselves to bad mouth me, as well as countless others, in a malicious and intentionally harmful manner, damaging our good names and reputations, in the name of "Review", "News", "Article" for personal gain:
It truly hurts us that people can these days get away with so much cyberbullying, character assassination, personal attacks, name-calling, unfounded accusations, destroying the competition’s credibility, and blatant defamation as well as fraud, all in the name of "freedom of speech" and the right to write “reviews”!
Are Lies Reviews? Is Hateful Speech Review? Is Cyberbullying Review? Is Defamation Review? Is Character Assassination Review? Is Committing Personal Attacks Review? Is Name Calling Review? Is Making False Accusations Reviews? Are Making Baseless Claims Reviews? Is Defamation Review?
Is Building a Multi Billion Dollar Business, As Yelp Has, While Making All The Above Common Practice, and Devoid of Any Liability, OK?
It is sad, but true! Anyone can make a free email, and then a free review account, and go on defaming others for personal gain! Isn't that a blast!?!! From first hand experience, I do not know most of the people who claim to have been patients! They very much sound like they are motivated by some kind of secondary gain as if they are working for another doctor, or they are a competitor! On the other hand, Yelp has unilaterally hidden about 40 of DrNewMe/Shane Sheibani 5/5 reviews from view, and not counted them in the final tabulation of the final rating! So to improve the final fake rating, the only option for DrNewMe/Shane Sheibani is to pay Yelp a whole lot of money to overwhelm the bad reviews with new good reviews which requires a lot of advertisements money to be spent on Yelp by DrNewMe/Shane Sheibani! How is that supposed to help the public? The only public it certainly will help are the person leaving the "Reviews" for personal gain, and the people owning the platforms charging lots of money to suppress the fake "Reviews"!!!Almost everyone knows very well that I lave not been, nor am I almost any of the things that the freelance journalist who was paid by the attorney attempting to extort me, made me seem to be.
Wait a Minute!! Isn't there a difference between the two different kinds of speech? Real Speech vs. Fake Speech?? Fake Media Industry are protected under the "freedom of speech" concept, regardless?! How does that work? Not all the "reviews", "news segments", "news articles" or other means of driving traffic towards or away from a given business are accurate, unbiased and honest. Making false claims that are intended to bad-mouth, discredit, and disrespect a professional are very hurtful, destructive, and intentionally toxic. Obviously, these are offensive, disrespectful, and false claims that the evil doers use to publicly assassinate various prominent, and successful professionals' characters. Professionals to become prominent, respected, and successful public figures invest decades of their lives, millions of potential income, and tolerate a great deal of pain, face countless challenges, and overcome thousands of difficulties in life. "Only someone malicious, malignant, and hateful would intentionally spread falsehoods, commit hateful speech and commit various tortuous acts of defamation for personal gain! Committing such outrageous acts that shock a normal person’s conscience shows that these types of individuals who spread falsehood in fake news, fake reviews and various forms of defamatory communication modalities are devoid of human decency, integrity and upright character! They lack the back bone, and the guts to say the truth, in an open forum, so they resort to lies, deceit and fraud. Defamation is the language of the gutless!" Let this be the quote of Dr. New Me for eternity! Anyone normal knows spreading fake news, defamation and fake reviews are harmful to the subject publicly receiving such malicious, hateful, defamatory remarks as well as it is damaging to the public as it promotes hateful speech, and prejudice; and it is very dangerous to themselves as it becomes justified for the subject to come after them legally, suing them for millions of dollars, potentially taking their home and everything they own in a court judgment. If a professional can show a lawyer that the claims that are made are baseless, misrepresentations and tortuous, which in many cases they may be, many lawyers may take these cases on contingency, just to teach these type of dangerous people a lesson, showing them that it is not open season on good, kind and professional people who may not have the ability to fight dirty, like the gutless do! But eventually, let me assure you all, the good will prevail! If you have been subject of Fake News, Fake Reviews, Defamation or any of the things I mentioned above, contact me. I may be able to help. If I can, it would be my pleasure to do my best!
THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE! NEVER GIVE UP!
MY LIFE BEFORE COSMETIC SURGERY:
I was born in Iran. I grew up in a family where my father had a government position as a doctor, working for the healthcare agency that supervised medical clinics, and outpatient facilities in part of the capital city of Tehran. Hence, I got exposed to the healthcare field at a very young age. My entire life's passion, and motivation was to become a surgeon. On the other hand, I was also highly entrepreneurial in spirit since a very young age. It was innate in me. When the Iran-Iraq war broke out, I was a teenager, and the universities were closed, hence the chances of attending a university were nonexistent.
Many teenagers like me flee the country. Without the privilege of having the supervision of my parents, under those circumstances, I also had to flee my war-stricken country of birth, to pursue my passion. After a few months awaiting for a visa in Europe, I arrived in Los Angeles. My brother and I rented an apartment together. I got a job first as a janitor cleaning offices of Jewish Federation in Wood land Hills but since it ended up being too far from my high school and home, I got a job in Surgery King when I enrolled in high school. I continued to work throughout high school, college, and most of medical school. I graduated high school, and attended junior college. I was on the Dean’s list, and got accepted into an accelerated, off-shore Caribbean medical school's dual degree BSc./MD degree program at the age of 19. That meant, that I would be able to study straight through summer breaks, and in four years I would graduate with an MD and a Bachelor's degree (BSc./MD) at the same time. I was excited about becoming a doctor at the age of 23. I did not know any better! I was young and naive. Obviously, I was new in America, and unfamiliar with all the intricacies of what the future had in store for me. All I knew was that I wanted to be a surgeon, and I could not wait! I decided to go to this school not knowing that later it would make my chances of becoming a surgeon in America, and an ABMS Board-Certified Plastic Surgeon hundreds of times more difficult. This turned out to be by far the most life-altering decision of my life. and I made it at the age of 19, which affected the rest of my life ever since.
I have been a committed student of the “personal growth” movement since my teenage years. To grow as an individual, one of my most favorite things beside reading motivational books, attending seminars, listening to talks, or asking advice from mentors is to learn from my own poor decisions by reviewing those decisions, and their consequences. The quality of our life directly depends on the quality of the decisions we make.
We make our decisions based on the methods we use for decision-making. I have found that making decisions based on emotions, rather than objective data, and facts, as well as the lack of adequate facts and information are usually the two causes of most of our poor decisions.
Objective, least emotionally based decisions, that are made based on facts, and data, usually have consistently proven to be the best decisions in my life in the long run.
Cosmetic Surgery, a Double-Edged Sword! The "First Mountain" of My Life!
CONQUERING THE "FIRST MOUNTAIN" OF MY LIFE, COSMETIC SURGERY:
Nonetheless, despite many difficulties, and tremendous challenges, I completed my medical studies, and after medical school, I completed two years of general surgery residency, followed by three years of cosmetic surgery fellowship training, and passed the written, and the oral examinations of the American Board of Cosmetic Surgery. This was a board of specialty that had been established about twenty years prior, and was working towards recognition as one of the Boards of Medical Specialties (ABMS), like Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Plastic Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery or Neurosurgery. Being that medicine is a very systemic, traditional, and for a good reason strictly standardized and of course political field, American Board of Cosmetic Surgery not being an ABMS-recognized board of specialty was always a problem, and the Medical Board of California also will not recognize it until it becomes ABMS recognized. This was a huge problem my entire cosmetic surgery career.
Before Cosmetic Surgery, I worked in various hospitals as a hospitalist, admitting patients, and taking call in the emergency rooms, while also working as an Urgent Care physician (Diplomate of the Board of Urgent Care Medicine) and a General Practitioner (Diplomate of the Board of General Practice), Anti-Aging Medicine (Diplomate of Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine) and pursuing training in Laser Surgery (American Board of Laser Medicine and Surgery). I also studied naturopathy and received a Naturopathy Doctorate (ND) degree, and Board Certification in that. When it came to learning medicine, and surgery, I have always been insatiable.
I started my independent practice of Cosmetic Surgery around July of 2000. I placed a few small ads which were all that I could afford, and as soon as I did a few surgeries, I started to get referrals, and suddenly my practice got busy. To attract patients, and to help people, I tried to keep my prices low. By 2005, I had by the grace of God developed a very successful cosmetic surgery practice. In fact, in 2003, unbeknownst to me, Daily News, one of the main newspapers of San Fernando Valley had conducted its annual consumer election of Los Angeles service providers, and I was named the Runner Up (in the second position), in the Best Plastic Surgeon category. That was one of the highlights of my career, and I felt as if I had achieved what I had worked so hard, for so long for. Soon I was able to buy a beautiful home in one of the most prestigious neighborhoods of Beverly Hills, from the head of the Department of Plastic Surgery of one of the most prestigious hospitals of West Los Angeles. I felt as if I had reached the summit of the mountain of my life’s dream. I felt like an eagle soaring. I truly loved my profession and loved helping others. Life could not be better. Looking back, I was at the top of the first mountain of my life.
Between 2003 to 2008 I had a very busy cosmetic surgery practice. I was in the operating room from early morning to the late afternoon, doing several cosmetic surgeries each day, followed by pre-operative, post-operative, and new patient consultation visits. After all that, I needed to attend to all the administrative paperwork, medical documentation and all the other things that had accumulated from all day’s staff’s work. As you can imagine, it was a tedious work, which occupied 16-18 hours per day, usually five days per week and I was on call seven days per week. Solo practice is quite grueling, and to lighten the load, I did bring on partners who eventually did not work out. When the 2008 economic crash occurred, the financial world of cosmetic surgery took a massive tumble and with it so did my life. It was like a free-fall as you can imagine. All the massive overhead that had been built around the business operations of the practice of cosmetic surgery, as well as the cost of living, all accumulated to a massive number each month. Income, some where not much higher than a few hundred dollars. In a very short time, I found myself millions of dollars in debt. There was absolutely nothing I seem to be able to do to stop this massive bleeding, and the free-fall. The heartbreak of letting your beloved staff go, your business down-sized, and eventually completely shut-down the surgical center, then the clinic, and one by one, your home, and everything else. It was a nightmare that I could not wakeup from. The worst of it all is that one in that situation can hardly speak of the devastation to anyone. It is too much to bear by oneself. It was truly overwhelming! I ended up in the ICU!
KEEPING OUR EYES TO THE FUTURE! ONE DAY AT A TIME!
From the end of December 2019, until January 6th, 2020, I suffered from a severe, and life-threatening COVID-19 infection that resulted in my hospitalization in the ICU. I was told by the ER physician, who cared about me as a colleague, to make my final arrangements. He felt that due to the severity of the bilateral pneumonia that I was suffering from, the low oxygen saturation, and the clinical presentation, based on his experience, I most likely was not going to make it out of the hospital alive. I was 51. As you may be able to imagine, that was a huge shock.
I made several calls, made final arrangements, and then sat back in the gurney in a state of shock! I truly was!
I believe in God strongly, and I felt that He had spared my life many times before, but I thought that God intended to end it by COVID. My entire life started to flash before my eyes like a movie. My life had been spared in 1990, when a group of young armed robbers who had been on a killing spree in Chicago, decided to let me live because I had showed them kindness before I knew they were about to rob me. It had been spared in a car accident when I ended up being hospitalized in the ICU with a collapsed lung, and I could have died. Several times I had ended in the ICU, during one episode of which I had nearly died. I also reviewed the struggles of my life, since my teenage years, and all that it had taken to become a doctor to that point. Working, and attending school had not been easy. As far back as I could remember, and up until that night, all I could remember was school, residency, building a medical practice, working to provide for a family, and raising kids, then rising from the ashes again, and again, and now it was about to end!
I then started to think of all the things I wished I had done differently during my life. All those choices that I had made, that I wished I could take back. All those mistakes that I had made. All those people that I had hurt in the process, and how I wished I could erase those mistakes, or somehow find each of those individuals, and apologize to them one by one, and let them know how sorry I was for the pain I had caused them, in any way that it may have been.
It was a very strange feeling. A very incredible, private, and spiritual time. It was three in the morning. I had a very difficult time breathing. I did not feel well at all. My whole body was weak. I was perspiring uncontrollably, and shivering. My eyes could not focus, and everything seemed blurry. I could hardly sit up, and I had to just lay down. I fell asleep.
The next thing I remember is that I was in the ICU in a small room, connected to a whole lot of machines, and tubes and two IVs, one in each arm. It was the next day, late in the afternoon. I was alive. That was good. They kept me in the ICU, keeping me alive with oxygen, giving me medications IV, and doing their best under those terrible circumstances of the COVID-19 Pandemic Disaster, when there was shortage of beds, drugs, hospital supplies, and literally everything healthcare.
Those few days were almost the most awakening, memorable, and impactful six days of my life. They were truly an opportunity for me to start reflecting. After six days, due to a shortage of hospital beds, they had to discharge me home, straight from the ICU. There were no hospital beds, and there was not much more that they felt they could do for me. They wished me luck, and sent me home. I was still extremely sick, and weak. I could hardly walk, and my eyes could not focus. COVID is a terrible disease. It had affected everything. After I finally got home, still feeling sick, I was truly thankful that my life was yet spared one more time. But this did not really sink in as much, until I read on Facebook that another cosmetic surgeon who was two years younger than me, and had no previous medical conditions, who had been in the same hospital's ICU at the same time as I was, had just passed away from COVID. It could have easily been me. I could have been the one who died, and he could have been the one who was spared! This has been on my mind since the moment I heard the news. This was a sad, shocking, and impactful experience that has permanently changed my outlook on life. This was very real. He had three small children. A young and wonderful man, who also practiced cosmetic surgery in Beverly Hills. This truly drove the lesson home. Life can end in the blink of an eye. It is so fragile and unpredictable. We should never take anything we have for granted. But COVID also taught me so many other lessons that I am going to spend the rest of my life sharing them with others.
Admittedly, I am a very stubborn man. I guess it takes a lot to have me challenge my own beliefs, and positions about things. But those six days, sick, near death, in the ICU did the trick. They started something that nothing else seemed to have done before. Those of you who know me know that I have had almost all the challenges that a physician can possibly experience in life. Financial, professional, social, legal, and personal. I had survived them all, and none of those huge problems had cracked me. After all those hugely devastating experiences I had in my life, I was still as self-righteous and egocentric as ever. COVID-19, the little virus had done the job to some degree.
Since COVID, my life has changed. It has found a new meaning. This website is an extension of that meaning.
MY DECISIONS AFTER COVID:
My decision after my near-death experience after COVID has been to be true to myself and to my purpose in my life. I don’t want to take my life, and my blessings for granted. I intend to enjoy and appreciate those things that I have in my life to the full extent possible. I plan to do my best to fulfill my calling in my life. I know I am blessed with many things, and I often forgot to have gratitude for all the massive blessings in my life. Health being foremost. Lack of gratitude is the foundation of unhappiness in life. Recognizing our blessings, and our gifts are paramount. Sharing those gifts with others is what we are here on earth for. It is our job to find out how we can benefit the greatest number of people in the world sharing our gifts and blessings, doing that which God has put us on this earth to do.
I know that I was meant to be a healer, a teacher, and an entrepreneur. I plan on doing these things for the rest of my life. I enjoy doing these things. Doing them give me a sense of purpose, fulfilment, joy and accomplishment. That is what I was put on this earth to do. It is my responsibility to share all that I have gathered over the last 54 plus years of my life with as many people as possible. I educate myself in some way at least three to four hours per day. I am committed to my constant and never-ending growth and improvement. I try to not make mistakes, but most importantly, knowing that making mistake is human, I do my best to forgive myself for my mistakes, and beg for forgiveness from those whom I have harmed, make restitution if required, then learn from my mistakes and do my absolute best to never make the same mistake again. That is all one can do as a responsible person and a leader.
My role now is no longer limited to the United States. I am involved in the service of global community in any capacity that I am called to serve. I have been an entrepreneur since I was a young boy. I have pursued business studies, and I have always found myself fascinated by entrepreneurship and the business world. I would most likely be practicing medicine and surgery on a volunteer basis globally to serve those in need. Utilizing my leadership, teaching, philanthropic, administrative, and entrepreneurial skills, I would make sure I am instrumental in making healthcare accessible to as many people globally as I can.
But first, I must acknowledge that I have mistakes in life. We all do. That is being human. I reviewed my life and I have been reviewing my life on a daily basis since and I have done myself to extract as many lessons from my experiences as I could from those experiences as I could. Second, I must appologize to all those people whom I have hurt. I love people, and I would never intentionally hurt anyone. However, if by making any poor choices, in some way, I have caused you who are reading my apology, any pain, or I have unintentionally hurt you in life in some way, please accept my most sincere, and heartfelt apology. I love you, and all people.
NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU FALL, RISE & RISE AGAIN! NEVER
BEGINNING OF A PAINFUL CRASH:
I am a highly entrepreneurial person. While my first passion was Cosmetic Surgery, I was always a natural entrepreneur since childhood. I have created and owned businesses since I was young. I have always truly loved entrepreneurship. When I started my practice, I was gifted by a business name in my sleep. I immediately woke up and wrote the name down.
NEW ME®
This became the name of my business, I trademarked it. I called my practice New Me Institute and later, New Me Surgical Institute. As I marketed the name and did surgery, I kept receiving referrals and kept marketing and kept receiving referrals. I was in entrepreneurial heaven. I could not get enough. I loved the challenges, and the education of entrepreneurship. I enrolled in business school. I wanted to grow. I kept trying to hire qualified partners to expand the business.
It was not the money that motivated me as much as the passion for entrepreneurship. I wanted New Me to be a national and a global brand. So, I tried to learn business, professionally and, academically while getting a degree, and hiring other surgeons to join my practice. There were many problems. For a few years, I could not recruit anyone with sufficient cosmetic surgery experience who wanted to work for me. I could hire new graduates without enough experience, but I was not willing to subject my patients and practice to that.
Most highly skilled and qualified cosmetic surgeons were in high demand. They did not want to work for the salary I was able to afford to offer. They could earn a whole lot more on their own. So, I would book my patients further out. I was fully booked months in advance.
Never the less, the patients were always my priority and during these years as I was searching for permanent, qualified partners, I increased my work hours to a point where I was only sleeping three to four hours per night. The demand for my time was increasing and I could not slow things down.
The overhead had become massive, I was expected to do all the surgeries myself, and I had to watch every little thing to make sure nothing went wrong. I loved everything that I was doing. Every moment of it. I could not get enough of either. Not enough of cosmetic surgery, and not of entrepreneurship. But unfortunately, it had become way too overwhelming, and no matter how many administrators and managers and topline staff I hired to help take the load off, instead they just added to the overhead! All the responsibility and liability would finally end up on my own shoulders as the medical director, the surgeon, the boss, and the business owner. I am sure you are all familiar with that
In the meanwhile, my pursuit for great, talented cosmetic surgery partners continued. The problem was my patients wanted me; and if someone else did the surgery and something did not go perfectly, as the medical director and the captain of the ship, still I was the one who was responsible to fix the problem. So, it both increased the overhead of the practice because I had to pay the surgeons' salaries and be responsible for their complications and unhappy patients. That was a deal that I had not signed-up for!
This crazy routine continued, it started to reverse things in my life. I was no longer at the "peak of the mountain". I was tired, fatigued, and burned out, "on the way down". When the financial meltdown of 2008 came about, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It became a free-fall. Ultimately, in retrospect, almost all my problems most likely have been caused by my own poor choices.
If early on in my career I felt like an eagle soaring, I was now on my way down, and it was going to be a crash-landing! It ultimately did not end well. I ended up not on the ground, but it felt like I was under the ground. I lost everything. I felt crushed in every way imaginable.
In the meanwhile, as I explained in the blog article below, "WHY COSMETIC SURGEONS HAVE UNHAPPY PATIENTS?", my mental state started to deteriorate as all the pressures were compounded with the unhappy patients complaining. I needed to calmly educate them, and simply resolve their misunderstandings. But with all the emotional, and mental pressures I was under, I was in no state to do that. Instead, my interactions with others further aggravated them, and created a viscous cycle that ended up involving me into all kinds of additional troubles. Eventually, I found myself in trouble with the Medical Board, legal issues, financial loss and devastation of my great professional reputation. I had also extended credit to many of my patients in good faith which they never paid me despite their great results, causing me hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses, and making me feel betrayed and cheated. I ended up in even deeper depression, and my mental health deteriorated even further. In the meanwhile, a lawyer brought six simultaneous malpractice lawsuits against me. He also hired a TV reporter to unbeknownst to me create a horrible video to make me look like a monster, to help him win his cases. When I learned I was set-up, I was understandably extremely upset, and intentionally they edited the video, in which they only showed the portions of it in which I was upset, and they succeeded in making me look like a monster. Later, several sites on the internet picked up the video and ran with it. It became a nationally devastating embarrassment. You could see Dr. New Me, on the internet misrepresented and defamed, that now had become totally depressed, and because of the antidepressant medications’ side effects had gained a whole lot of weight. I gave up after that. Everything had become a huge, overwhelming mess, and the Medical Board pursued the issues hence my license was suspended and revoked.
Later, after I got to know the attorney who had brought the six lawsuits against me, he turned out to be a very nice guy. He was just trying to make money representing his clients, and nothing else. It was just that he had advertised in the same place that I advertised so my patients who came from the same source of advertisement called him and he was overenthusiastic in accepting their cases. I learned that he hired the news reporter to make the news clip to get back at me for my angry behavior towards him in the beginning.
I learned another lesson that in a bad situation, my own poor behavior would only make the situation worse. It has been eleven years since that time. I have come a long way. It takes moment to moment awareness.
When we eventually went to court to defend my practice against each of the six malpractice cases, and presented our defense, thanks to the evidence, the truth, the before and after pictures, documentations, and the expert witness testimonies, nothing came of those malpractice lawsuits, and with God's grace they were all resolved. They all went away but too little too late. The mental, emotional, and financial devastation that they caused me will be forever a part of my every fiber and memory. That video did something to me, and my self-esteem, self-confidence, my reputation, my ability to earn a living, my social life, and even my relationship with my children that I can't even describe with any words. As I write this at this given moment, I am in a state of disbelief and awe.
One thing I learned is that there are amazing people who have great intentions, but when they hear something, without adequate investigation, or objective knowledge, they jump into conclusion and spread the information. This can become cyber assassination. The internet world has become such a double-edged sword. I love the side of the internet that can help us grow as individuals by learning, sharing our ideas and opinions, and teach each other. It can also help humanity, be impactful in a positive manner and make our world a much better place. I watch YouTube, educational channels, and videos all the time. On the other hand, there are all these toxic social media and dark sites. All these destructive sites that have been designed with no good intention, accountability nor consideration for the best interest of our human family. Sometimes even media intentionally participates in these kinds of spreading of fake news behaviors. When the reporters are allowed to be paid privately and the segments are allowed to be edited with an intended angle regardless of the truth, that is fake news. On the other hand, a competitor cosmetic surgeon in Beverly Hills used his own Yelp account to write defamatory claims that were founded on misrepresentations and untrue statements to hurt me and my reputation, in a public forum, then using that in his own advertisements, to associate decades of my notariaty to his own name for the purpose of personal gain, truly caused me deep anguish, as did when I learned of his demise of COVID-19 during the same time I was hospitalized in the same ICU as he was. An anesthesiologist, Dr. Nosrat K. who defrauded me out of about $400,000 by selling me a bankrupt medical facility by faslsifying documents in 2004 wrote a horrible Google review under his own name making malicious false claims and hurtful defamatory remarks, whose outragous reviews were allowed by Google to remain. Interestingly enough, his horrible behaviors, I heard, backfired on him and his life is totally destroyed. So many misrepresentations and false claims have been spread all over disguized as "Reviews" and are protected by the First Amendment which leaves room to wonder how much freedom does one possess to say whatever one pleases about someone in an open forum, with impunity? When we say dishonest things about others, spread hatred, try to hurt someone intentionally by spreading information that we know is not true, knowing it will truly devastate their life, we intent to assassinate their character and destroy their reputation, all with the excuse that this is America, and we have the right to Freedom of Speech; that is not exercising our rights, it is something else!
At the end, the lessons I learned from all these experiences are still being processed. Working on myself and trying to overcome my anger, reactive hatred, and resentment, I have decided to turn this around. I have accepted that I was the cause of it in some ways. I prefer to not be a victim. When I see myself as a victim, I give my power away. There is no power in being a victim. As a victim, I can do nothing to change something that has happened to me. But as a person who accepts that he was responsible for what happened, I have all sorts of power. I can change all types of things, do all types of things, and learn all types of things. Suddenly I am in a position of power.
I have shifted my position from a victim to a proactive cause, victor, and source. By starting this blog, educating my previous patients, writing articles on the internet, communicating with Yelp, Google and Fox News who allowed this "Fake News" to be aired and disguised as real news, and the other internet sites that used this “news video” to increase their traffic, and all the other things that I intend to do, I will do all the things I need to do to take my power back.
After all the previously mentioned devastating experiences, from 2008 financial melt-down to the 2013 video fake news, and its demoralizing, devastating irreversibly destructive effect on me in every way, and the six lawsuits, which made the loss of my medical license inevitable and all its aftermaths, I felt as if I had had a free-fall crash-landing that drove me proverbially six-feet-under.
RISE FROM THE ASHES, ONE STEP AT A TIME!
Life Immediately After the Crash Landing:
I am not sure if you’ve ever experienced something similar to what I am describing, however, what my first reaction to all that was going on at the time was, was just a sense of total awe and disbelief. It takes quite a long time for us to be able to make sense of such a tremendous series of events that happen all in such a very short period of time. It is very much like a tornado that hits one’s home, and once it passes nothing remains standing, and one is left facing total destruction of everything familiar and valuable. It leaves nothing behind, but total devastation. That level of destruction is only in an aspect of one’s home but imagine if this happened in every possible aspect of your life! How would you possibly deal with that?
To assess the gravity, and extends of it all, and to make sense of what has happened, and to put it all in perspective, to come up with some strategies to execute and move forward from there takes superhuman fortitude and strength. It may take weeks or months of grieving and mental adjustment. If one is already vulnerable as I was, and has already been almost broken as I felt, this was definitely the final straw. Under those circumstances, those first few days, I hardly could find the strength and the desire to live through, yet one more day. But with the grace of God, I somehow survived. That definitely was a miracle, and I have an obligation to give back now, as I know there are many out there who may be struggling with the same experiences. If any of you who are reading this, are in the same or similar circumstances, from repeated experience of rising from the ashes like a phoenix, let me assure you that there is always hope. No matter how grave the circumstances seem to be at this moment, there is always hope. It is all about the perspective that we have to the situation. When we are so close to the problem that the problem looks greater than our own life is worth, then what we need to do is to just change our perspective. Try to put some space between you and the problem. If at all possible, physically I prefer you do that. Try to get away from the problem for a while. Get away from everything if you must. Take a few days off. Or weeks, or even months. There is nothing more valuable than your life and health. You must find a big enough reason to live. In any time of trouble, you have got to find the big “why” and the “how” takes care of itself. Whatever the problem seems to be, find the reason as to WHY it is important that you overcome the problem, the challenge, or the obstacle? What is at stake, who is it that you love who would suffer if you did not solve the problem? Once you find a big enough WHY, the HOW will take care of itself. You will find a way. Your mind is brilliant. It will come up with all kinds of solutions to get you to the next step and then the next step and the next.
Just to initially change your perspective, you may need to go to the countryside and enjoy the fresh air and just enjoy the nature and realize that life can be beautiful without any of those things that you are so incredibly upset over. Having fresh air in nature, water, food, and being alive are enough; everything else is secondary. Exercising gratitude and appreciation for all that we are blessed with is hugely important. Grace, I earned is the blessing of the fortitude and the strength we obtain to get through each moment when we focus on the moment. Don’t worry about tomorrow or the next week or the next month. Focus on this moment. Get through this moment the best you can. Then do your best with the next moment and then the next and the next and the next. When you string along hundreds of moments you create a day and then weeks and months and as you keep focused on your big WHY, you will find yourself where you need to be.
As you can imagine, these moments where not all easy moments to get through. Sometimes it felt like crawling one inch out of the deep hole I had been driven into took a whole month. Sometimes I slipped back into the hole a lot further down due to one bad choice. The hole was so deep and tortuous, and I was so injured and traumatized that it took over 10 years to finally make my way all the way out of that hole. During these ten long and painful years, and continuously since, I attended numerous seminars and classes, I participated in countless counseling and therapy sessions, I read hundreds of self-help books and watched hundreds of videos. I prayed, meditated, and worked on myself spiritually. In fact, there is not a day that I do not feed my mind with some positive personal development educational material from some source. I spend at least about three to four hours per day doing this. I love the YouTube and Audible. They are my best friends. I am committed to constantly growing, improving, learning, and becoming a better person as an individual, executive, father, friend, partner, and a leader. In every capacity that I serve, I am committed to being the best that I can be. I want to live up to my absolute full potential. We are either growing or becoming obsolete and dying. The technology and the world in general are advancing by leaps and bounds. Just to keep up, we have no choice but to keep learning and expanding. We are the ones who choose our own limitations and determine where our limitation for growth and success are. If we are willing to push through the limits of our comfort zone and grow beyond it, we will have to feel the discomfort, and tolerate it, and if we stay the course and keep our eyes focused on our intended goals, then, there is no limit as to how far we can go, and what we can achieve.
HEADED TOWARDS THE TOP OF THE SECOND MOUNTAIN:
Cosmetic surgery seemed to be the FIRST MOUNTAIN of my life. I reached its peak in my early thirties, and I truly enjoyed the triumph for years. However, I experienced the unexpected 2008 financial meltdown, and the crash-landing, as well as all that followed. This free fall from the top of my First Mountain, proverbially, drove me Six-Feet-Under. Once I was successful at climbing out of the hole that I had put myself into, it was time to start climbing up a new mountain. This time, I would make sure the mountain would be much bigger, lusher, and greener. I am in no rush to get to the top. I am taking as many people as I can with me. It is a true joy to celebrate our great successes with all those who have worked hard shoulder-to-shoulder with us to achieve those great results.
The purpose (WHY) of the Second Mountain for me is to live my life to its fullest, fulfilling my dreams and my fullest potential, doing those things that I know I am truly gifted at doing, and helping the maximum number of people in the process. I intend to share as much of every bit of everything I have in me with as many people in this world as possible, hoping to benefit the greatest number of people, before I am gone. To fulfil my obligation and fulfill my calling, living with passion and adding value to others’ lives while making prosperity for myself and others is such an inspiring mission that has kept me going in the face of all challenges and adversities. The inspirations and motivations have enticed me to face many obstacles and with God’s mercy I have triumphed, over and over again. Ultimately the Second Mountain is a matter of helping others, and the purpose is to be of service, being true to my life's calling and making a difference.
Making mistakes is human. But this time around, as I have grown wiser and learned a great deal from my many mistakes of the past, I get to catch myself early. This gives me a sense of a battle-hardened warrior who has the confidence to know that he can handle almost any challenge that may come his way as he has been through many wars and has many scars that are his medals of honor.
In the last 15 years I have been working hard at building my life on the right track. Finding my purpose in life and putting it all back together again has been an exciting opportunity to re-create myself. From Dr. New Me now to Dr. American Elite, I have experienced a total transformation. Let me explain.
In the last thirty years, I knew that I wanted to align my business entrepreneurial passion, with my interest in teaching, consulting, practice of medicine and surgery, administration, business leadership, philanthropy, and my artistic inclination, creative interests, investment interests, global business venture, public speaking, writing and my many other passions and interests. To figure out how to do all of that seemed like an impossibility. When the crash landing of 2008 occurred, this gave me a start for that transformation. I don’t believe it was a choice, but it was the WHY that I had to figure out the HOW to.
I have been doing healthcare administration, leadership coaching and business consulting since 2012 on a full-time basis, although I did that on a part time basis on and off, for decades before.
I created a nonprofit organization in the nineties to participate in philanthropic efforts, serving others. I am now increasing these efforts.
God has put me in a situation where I am the head of my own global organization in which I do exactly all the things that I love doing. I am busy working as a consultant, teaching, providing healthcare administration, business leadership, philanthropy through a nonprofit organization I have founded. I am constantly expanding and growing my business tapping my artistic inclination, pursuing my creative interests while creating logos, videos, websites, brand materials for our various business clients and others. In addition, I have invented things that I have patented, for example a tire that is flat-proof and does not go flat even if it is struck by a bullet. I have written many books now that I am about to self-publish, seven of which were initially published in 2006 and have library of congress registration numbers. We are developing over thirty educational courses for executives, entrepreneurs, and others. We are being scheduled for public speaking and I am also pursuing my many other passions and interests.
I have learned the joy of living on my life's purpose. Through the nonprofit organization, we are now planning on providing medical services to the needy and underserved in all those communities that are in need and lack access.
FROM SIX FEET UNDER TO THE TOP OF THE GROUND:
Since my teenage years, I have been involved in the self-help movement, and I have been in every way possible feeding my mind with self-improvement concepts. It was using these concepts that helped me crawl myself out of the hole, one inch at a time.
Sometimes it felt like crawling out one inch took a whole month. Sometimes I slipped back into the hole a lot further down due to one bad choice. It took 10 years to finally make my way all the way out of that hole. During these ten long and painful years, and continuously since, I attended numerous seminars and classes, I participated in countless counseling and therapy sessions, and I read hundreds of self-help books and watched hundreds of videos. In fact, there is not a day that I do not feed my mind with some positive personal development educational material from some source. I spend at least about three to four hours per day doing this.
TOWARD THE TOP OF THE SECOND MOUNTAIN:
Once I was successful at climbing out of the hole that I had put myself into, it was time to start climbing up a new mountain. This time, the mountain will be much bigger, lusher, and greener, I am in no rush to get to the top, and I am taking as many people as I can with me.
It is a matter of helping others and the purpose is to be of service, being true to my life's calling and making a difference.
Making mistakes is human. But this time around, as I have grown wiser and learned a great deal from my many mistakes, I get to catch myself early.
I created a nonprofit organization in the nineties to participate in philanthropic efforts, serving others. I am now increasing these efforts.
In the last eleven years, God has had me function as the executive administrative consultant to a clinic in the South Los Angeles and the South-Central Los Angeles where this clinic is serving the needy and the underserved population of the city. I have learned the joy of living on my life's purpose. Through the nonprofit organization, we are now planning on providing medical services to the needy and underserved in all those communities that are in need and lack access. I have been doing business consulting since 2012 on a full-time basis, although I did that on a part time basis on and off, for decades before.
WHILE I AM CLIMBING THE SECOND, THE THIRD & FOURTH MOUNTAINS ARE NOW COMING INTO VIEW:
While I call Cosmetic Surgery, the First Mountain of my life, now I am climbing the SECOND MOUNTAIN of my life and ironically I had started my climb 35 years ago. It was always lurking in the background in my mind, all my adult life. In reality, I thought it was something that should stay in the background as a secondary endeavor, where in fact, it was meant to be my front and center, and God chose to help me see that.