Doctor808 Plastic Surgeon Honolulu Hawaii

The Hawaii Motorcycle Safety Class I took this last weekend in preparation for my trip to Europe. We will be riding some fairly large motorcycles in the Alps, my friend Taka and I.

The class was rather intense and lasted three days, total of 10 hours of riding time. The class started in the class room.

The group was good but only a few of us talked as sometimes happens. The bonding of such classes is always interesting to observe. I spoke with a Russian gradaute student and another one or two people but most of our time was occupied. There was a musician and other people from all walks of life.

Much of the class was performing obstacle course and driving technique. We all drove in around, though for me I learned a lot but it was boring and tedious. The most exciting part was when some young lady crashed , minor injury but since I was the “doctor”. I was called to the scene. You may be supirsed to know that i was a general surgeon in trauma (New York City ) at one point in my career, so I know a few things even though I am a plastic surgeon.

Ankle Injury

Well that was my report for this post. Next will be a few words about the trip

doctor808

Travel will start again this year very soon. I have Europe, China , Korea  and Thailand on the agenda. The Asia trips are all work but most of the time in Europe will be for super fun.

I have to get ready again for the Korean Cosmetic Surgery Meeting in Seoul Again, after that I will go to China again. These will be for cosmetic surgery lectures and teaching  that I will give. It seems that last conference in Korea was not to long ago or was that Tokyo I am confused.  China will be on the Agenda as well this year just like the conference in Fuzhou.

Dr. Lee and Dr. Pasquale China Fuzhou Conference

Korea is always a lot of fun , there will be the usual gang from Tokyo, Korea and China all running around and being very doctor like !  I have to prepare my lecture which is going to be on Breast Augmentation again. This is my reputation there as the” Hawaii Breast Augmentation Guy”.  Yet I do facial plastic surgery as well, but for some reason all the Korean’s come to my clinic to study breast augmentation.

Now for the Europe trip, My plan is to go to Amsterdam and stay at the usual place called the Amsterdam American Hotel. There I will meet my friend from Tokyo , Dr. Kuvo and we plan to rent two large motorcycles.  From there we cruise through Germany on the way to Lausanne to take part in some training of a new rejuvenation technique having to do with stem cells etc. Do not know much about it yet but sounds promising.

Outdoor market in Amsterdam

So this will be a busy couple of weeks preparing for the trips and making sure patients are being well cared for by me and m staff. The fun starts at the end of the month first off to Europe.

Thats it for now

Doctor808

I was watching a television documentary the other day about fake products such as the designer hand bags which fake the label such a coach, LV etc. I was amazed how many fakes were out there. The documentary stated it was a 2 billion dollar a year business. I reflected on this notion of these fake designer handbags and thought about fakes in medicine , business and life.

The other day I came across and interesting story about a mexican man charged with practicing medicine without a license. This fellow apparently was performing plastic surgery procedures in Miami Florida at a very good price. I do not know how many surgeries he performed,  but one of the more interesting ones had to do with pectoral implants. Pectoral implants are made to make a mans chest look like he has muscles on his chest. This mexican felllow placed breast implants in some poor guys chest instead of pectoral implants. So when he woke up after anesthesia he had what looked like woman’s breast ! It always pays to check the credentials of the plastic surgeon you go to and not just go with cheapest I suppose.

I guess all fields of endeavor have fakes, you know like the man who was caught telling people  he was in the Green Berets and was not. Seems this fellow went around to various military clubs and bragged about how he was with the 5 th special forces group (MAC-SOG) Vietnam Green Berets. Eventually he was invited to give a lecture to a group of young army soldiers at I believe a military base. At this larger gathering as I recall the story there were several members of the army green beret unit that he claimed he was there.  Also these real Green Berets were in there at the same time he claimed to be there. So the Green Berets is a small outfit and very closely united so they would have remembered him and discussed this among themselves. Since they did not recall this fellow they went back and checked the records. He was no Green Beret, he in fact was not even in the Army but claimed he was. Another fake is found out …… you cannot get something for nothing.

There are many stories of wonderful doctors in small towns who helped the community. Then they were found out not to be doctors at all but may have had some medical training.

The point of all of this is one should make sure people are who they say are,  before you get involved, you may suffer like the man in first story who woke up with woman’s breast when he was a man. He thought he was getting pectoral implants,  but instead got breast implants. So doctors are easy to check credentials, I do not know how to advise you on others. Perhaps we need to get back to the days when people were introduced to each other by a reliable friend.

doctor808

What do you think?

A few weeks ago  friend of mine was expressing to me the concern they seemed to note at a cosmetic surgery meeting. They said to me “these cosmetic surgeons all they care about is money” in a holier than thou attitude.  The attitude reflected the attitude of others I have heard before, who either do not think cosmetic surgery is needed or see the money some of these surgeons make. Well since this was a friend I asked candidly ” do you think that is all I care about ?” My friend said “no”. Well this bothered me to some degree for two reasons. First what is wrong with making money for ones labors ? I mean rewarding people in a competitive fashion with money,  for doing good work —-it actually does work. We have seen this propel society to grow more food for its people. We have seen such a formula of    reward the individual = better production and achievement tried many times and we can observe the failures and the successes of this. Like wise we have seen the formula   reward everyone equally =  less production and achievement proven as well.

In agriculture,  farms that made good production of food  made the most money, the farms that did not produce much food efficiently  lost money and failed. The Soviet economic system completely crumbled due to the lack of incentives other than a banner or badge from the state which said “good job”. Seemed it was not enough to keep things going. More food is a good thing, less food is a bad thing. I think I have made my point here.

So if we apply these principles to cosmetic surgery, what we have is people competing for more money. This means those that do better at cosmetic surgery, produce better results will earn more money than those who produce less results. Although,  in general I think this may be true but  not 100% of the time. People who want cosmetic surgery will want the best I believe. So it follows they will try to find the best for their budget.

So when someone tells my like my friend, Cosmetic Surgeons are only interested in money. In one way –I think that is good thing because of what I said in the above paragraph.  It will produce the best results. A poorly performing cosmetic surgeon will not earn much money and if they are really bad will hopefully go out of business. So in this way, greed is a good thing I think. This is because people have FREE WILL. That is to say,  they can choose this cosmetic surgeon or that one,  depending on what they think is the best. Cosmetic Surgery is unregulated to some degree.

The same applies to many aspects of society. When people are given a choice to work hard and earn more money and if they want more money they work harder, then there are those who try to slide by , talking  a lot or pretending to do a lot,  but do not. The latter typically get rewarded the least with money. That seems fair to me. So I disagree with the notion that cosmetic surgeons greed is 100% a bad thing. It produces the best cosmetic surgeons,  as societies based on a reward system for work performed,  should win. Again we have seen this over and over again,  so I cannot say why people fail to see this.

Now all  rewards are not money. Yet there is a system of rewards which works for some people. Maybe its prestige as seen in academic life such as a promotion to tenure as a professor or a missionary who gives health care free to the poor in some out of the way place like Cambodia. Well they have there rewards as well. They good from their works. I do not think one is worse than the other money verses a good feeling. Both are rewards.

So back to greedy cosmetic surgeons.  Well greed can be good if greed is simply the desire to get some reward such as  money , good feeling or whatever system of values are in place. This is greed? If that is what my friend meant then I think this is a a wrong opinion. What I think is greed in a bad way is when someone wants something through trickery or doing nothing. This means for example a cosmetic surgeon gives Botox charges the patient  for a certain amount then does not give that amount. Like the doctor who went to jail for telling patients he was giving them a cancer drug but sold then water instead which an actual case, That is what I call bad greed. Like wise are people who expect the society to give them something for nothing. We all must contribute.

Contribute is what most cosmetic surgeons have done especially the traditionalist such as myself who were plastic surgeons. Plastic Surgeons are called all the time to emergency rooms to take care of people. Most who have no money and thus the doctor does not get paid. Would you do work for free ? Well I am sure some of you will , but would you do work for free and then risk getting sued? Well most plastic surgeons will and do.

So I have no problem with a cosmetic surgeon who cares about money if that is type of greed. In most ways I think that is good. This is why I am a libertarian and subscribe to some of the philosophies of Ayn Rand.  Please try and understand the difference.

doctor808