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Dr. Dean Kane’s personal insights and reflections of his own surgical evolution over the past 25 years.

I never stop learning. I am always joining fragmented learning, thoughts, art, and creativity together; not to be different so much as to be better. I want to think of myself as a unique plastic surgeon bringing my patients my many years of experience and giving them in turn their unique and personal revitalized appearance. Following trauma to the face, many patients required the bones to be replaced anatomically and held there with wires and screws. This platform introduced me to the idea of suspension suturing during my residency in the 1980’s. Such reconstruction took place under the deepest tissues next to the bone which lifted and replaced injured tissues at a more elevated position. Believe it or not, even after trauma, the patients said they look younger and the reason was that the laxed tissues of aging were repositioned in a more youthful place. These ideas have evolved for me in adding value to the mid-face lift where the cheek and jowl tissue descent is elevated and held in place until healed. My trauma experience continues to this day to influence my evolving unique techniques with my facelift surgeries. Another “ah-ha” moment is when the “Thread Lift” failed in most physicians hands, it worked in mine as I used the thread lift as a suspension device holding tissues in place until they healed rather than a lifting thread which could not hold the weight of gravity and facial laxity. If you look at my liposuction results, you’ll find them smoother, more contoured and sculpted. This developed out of an annoying observation that those surgeons who liposuctioned spot or areas, created an edge along the outline of their liposuction. Enjoying a renaissance moment, I realized that shadows and light reflections provide our brains with the joy of smooth even long and graceful lines (like a high cheeked model reflecting cheek mound and nike swoosh along her cheek with a gentle depression of shadowing into the mid-cheek hollow; or a beautiful woman with full highlighted breasts and gentle shadows in the cleavage, collar bone and sides). I realized that in Michelangelo’s David that it was not what Michelangelo chipped away, but what he left behind to make magnificence. Bring us back to lipocontouring or liposculpturing and you will appreciate how the outer hip contours into the lower back, the flank and the buttock-thigh bulge. In contouring this area, the patient enjoys a 360 degree improvement of their side profile and not a simple spot reduction. So too with the upper inner thigh bulge more beautifully contoured to create a longer legged appearance by developing the soft smooth muscular depression from the hip to the inner knee and contoured reduction of the upper, inside and below knee fat. How about arms which not only bulge under the upper arm but extend gracefully and with softer and sleeker contours of the elbows, biceps, triceps, deltoid triangle and under arm and muffin-top over the bra? Finally, liposuction under the chin doesn’t cut it compared to lipocontouring a jaw line and reduction of the jowls too! I learned tummy tucks much the same way as most plastic surgeons today perform them. It was in my patients’ best interest to receive a new body contour more than simply a flat tummy. Combining reconstructive techniques, the underlying principles of scarring, healing and blood supply to keep the tissues living, my tummy tuck provides added value to the patient so they heal effortlessly, with no “dog-ears” on the sides. I achieve an “hour glass” waistline and no visible belly button scar.  Many of these techniques I created myself following the passion to make a better surgery and a better result for my patient. As a plastic surgeon, we are trained to provide the best scarring possible. Scars always bother me when I have to put them onto the body and face. Wherever I can I try to minimize my scars. In my facelift, I purposely hide the scar on the inside edge of the ear so you never see a scar on the face. For my small breasted patient I try to create a near-scarless breast lift? Also known as a “donut or Circumareolar” mastopexy, this special lift for mild to moderate breast sagging creates its scar around the pink-brown areola of the nipple region. In the donut breast lift there is no “lollipop” up and down scar or “anchor” under the breast scar. It even allows for a breast implant to be placed with no extra scarring! In the past 10 years, the advancement of the injectables, like Botox, Dysport and Fillers (Restylane, Perlane, Juvederm and Sculptra has allowed my creative ability to reduce wrinkles and folds, rebalance facial expressions, plump lips and cheeks and rejuvenate an aging face without invasive surgery.  I have enjoyed pioneering many new techniques to refill the cheeks which help to pull up the nasolabial fold and camouflaging your eyelid bags. The idea of giving my patients a liquid facelift has become a true art form for me. I look at my patients facial structures to not only fill and plump, but how to rebalance the facial features to bring a more natural beauty. The aging face is one where skin structures have fallen causing the jowls to create a squared off jawline. The challenge for me is to use injectables to recreate the more youthful heart shape face, by using fillers and Sculptra to create higher appearing cheek bones. Rebalancing the angle of the face gives the illusion of a more youthful face. In today’s high tech, fast moving pace, I recognize how people have no time for downtime. Their biggest concern is getting back to work quickly, but rejuvenated. I have truly come to appreciate how the Liquid Facelift fulfills this strong need for my patients. As I near my 60th birthday, I have over the past 5 years tried to fulfill my creative bucket list. I have finally given myself the time to enjoy my artistic ability and spend a portion of my week devoted to creating my own art form I call Photo-Sculptures. All the years of surgery and appreciating the dynamic three dimensional form of the body motivated me to take my photographic hobby and turn it into three dimensional art forms. This art form started when I learned adobe photo shop and realized I could take my photographic images and morph the image with different colors and forms. I have always had an appreciation of the masters of art. Taking their different styles, like Mondrian, Lichtenstein, Warhol, and Monet, I mimicked their styles into my own photos and kept progressing with my own style. Even my wife, Lauri finally likes my most recent works and has become my most ardent fan and supporter. As we have reached our 40 years of being together, Lauri and I have had a wonderful life in creating a very successful practice and enjoying our lives in Baltimore. We appreciate our wonderful staff that we call Team Kane who have been a tremendous part of making our office so warm, caring and like a family for all who walk in our door. It is only mine and Lauri’s hope that we continue for many more years to come to take care of our patients and continue to offer the latest and the greatest in plastic surgery and the advances in the whole genre of non-surgical rejuvenation of the face and body. Sincerely, Dean Kane, MD, FACS
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