Individuality in Plastic Surgery

With time, maturity, wisdom and the creative watchful of vision a artist, I, Dean Kane, MD,  visualize, form, camouflage and  distinguish what few other cosmetic surgeons technically cannot. Forming a breast is simply not just a mound of silicone on a chest… Cheek mounds on a woman are not the same as that of a man or for that difference another woman. The uniqueness of a man or woman is individual, age, race, color and even personality different. I recognize that we all process our persona differently! A thin white woman of English or Irish descent may wish for an erasure of lipstick lines or softening of thin, tight lips but usually not at the trade-off of a fuller, wider, mouth, jowls, or fuller lower face associated with aging.  A woman of African descent has fuller cheeks, eyebrows with energetic expression and full, desirous lips. The female of Mediterranean background wishes for a more firmly contoured neck and jaw line; a longer face with high cheekbones. Asian females ask for a western eyelid and smooth complexion. Nowadays, each decade seems to bring in its next trend of face presence. A stronger chin, a straighter nose, fuller cheekbones, lower but arched brows are today’s desires as contrasted with a pre-millennium fuller cheek, a crisp but hollow upper eyelids, pinched nasal tip with ski-slope bridge. Today’s, plethora of fillers are creating a “super-human”. Individuals with over projecting features performed by increasingly more non-artistic physicians.  I envision in a beautiful model, a face with a smooth soft triangular angle of the chin and jaw line sweeping onto the mild shadows of the fleshy, cheek hollows and melding onto the almond shaped reflection of firm and not boney cheek-bones. Too much fill along the nasalabial and marionette folds produce a simian or chimp-like face flattening the cheek-bones. The eyes of a woman should be framed in a soft reflection of highlights elevated upward and outward like in-flight gull wings without temple or eye-socket hollows. The forehead should be smooth and satiny yet animated with delight and feline expression. Her neck, slender and smooth without the firm prominence of an “Adam’s apple”. Their nose an elongated champagne glass edging to an arch with the brows; a slender waist with a small nasal tip. Men are perceived and perceive themselves with a more square jaw line, stronger chin and similarly crisp upper neck yet firmer muscular fullness and more prominent thyroid cartilage. Each procedure is individually constructed to take in this panoply of factors! Suspension elevation of the neck with a corseted platysmaplasty to the Adams apple for men but over the thyroid cartilage and down almost to the supra sternal notch for women. Micro-liposculpting the jowl and hollow cheek more for women and less for men, more for patients of Mediterranean descent and less in African heritage. Fat grafting or fillers to correct, fill, elevate and contour the wider parameters of the upper cheek just below and between the corner of the eye and ear tragus; looking like a almond on its side or a Nike “swoosh”. Squarer more prominent faces of Hispanics or rounder flatter faces in Indian and Asian descents are examined and critically reviewed to offer the most rejuvenated natural options with the current armamaterium of gel and paste fillers, fat grafting, laser and light tightening, pharmaceutical skin color eveners, surgical lifts and medical muscle balancers. Today’s American woman is an evolution of our technology. With artificially enlarged breasts, liposuctioned waists, lipo-filled buttocks, slenderized thighs and calves, thin and toned arms, flat and tucked tummies; they have become the super-natural living embodiment of our avatars or animee! Most everyone I meet wishes for these techniques to be used to fulfill their personal best and not to look similar to others. There is a current trend away from such over exaggerated profiles in most of our patients. Whether Black or White, Hispanic, European, Asian, Middle-Eastern, Indian, male or female, gay, lesbian or trans-gender, the uniqueness of each patient is addressed and using today’s options, modified, improved, rejuvenated, smoothed, filled, lifted but certainly addressed to fulfill the patients “minds-eye” for this artistic and creative plastic surgeon.