Posted November 25, 2010 in Blog, Celebrity Plastic Surgery, Uncategorized
On this Thanksgiving, I wish good health and happiness to all, and an additional message to Darlene Montag, the mother of Heidi Montag. Darlene, you should be very proud of your daughter. Heidi’s sincere words of wisdom about her plastic surgery experience (learned the hard way by America’s first darling of reality TV) on ABC’s “Celebrity Plastic Surgery Gone Too Far” with host Cynthia McFadden is a blessing for patients considering undergoing future plastic surgery.
Heidi is no longer the “laughing stock of plastic surgery” but is the most valuable patient advocate that any patient, young or old, will ever have.
With over 10 million cosmetic procedures last year in the United States, patients are presenting for treatment earlier at younger ages. Many like Heidi in their 20’s, many even in their teens. Breast surgery and rhinoplasty top the list of surgery in young patients. Naturally reshaping a nose can be life changing. A breast reduction or augmentation can also be a life changer in the properly selected patients.
Unfortunately, many young patients are now having premature anti-aging treatments such as Botox, fillers, mid-face lifts, fat injections, and even face lifts. The combination of greed, the current economic down turn, and the sad lack of surgical ethics in some physicians will result in an increase of this ominous trend of unnecessary surgery in young patients.
Earlier this year after your surgeries I never would have imagined saying this, but thank you Heidi for being the voice of reason in this all too often muddled world for so many others who like you, “…only want to be happy”.
Thank you for renouncing your title of “The Queen of Plastic Surgery” and giving it back to our beloved and deserving Queen Joan (Rivers, whose book about plastic surgery, “Men Are Stupid, and They Like Big Boobs” is an excellent educational guide for those considering plastic surgery). Thank you for telling others that once operated upon, “There is nothing you can do to rewind time” and “I don’t want to do that to my body ever anymore”.
As your mother told you on the final episode of “The Hills”, “Nobody in the world could look like Heidi Montag.” Yet too many patients undergo extreme plastic surgical make-overs only to end up looking like just another “done” plastic surgery patient. The best plastic surgery is natural and nearly undetectable.
Thank you for sharing your experience, as painful as this past year has been for you, your friends, and family. Thank you for sharing the Hollywood induced insecurities that led up to your surgery and your experience with the late Dr. Frank Ryan. When you asked Dr. Ryan, “What else can we do, if you had your dream person, what would you do to make me perfect?” and he suggested your plastic surgical marathon, it should be a lesson to patients of what not to do at their plastic surgery consultations. At their consultation, patients should know what bothers them, and what results would satisfy them. This should be communicated clearly to the surgeon, and patient should be certain that they and their surgeon on the the “same wave length”. Letting a plastic surgeon wield a scalpel carte blanche is like asking the fox if he would like to spend some time in the chicken coop.
It is important for patients to know that it is their physician’s obligation to prepare them for what to expect from the surgery, the recovery period, and the ultimate result. A detailed informed consent for any surgery should include what the procedure entails in lay terms, alternative treatments, expected outcomes, the risks and complications involved, as well an understanding of the sometimes long and difficult recovery period.
Heidi, most of all, thanks for your final answer of your interview when host Cynthia McFadden asked, “… And the message you have (for) “Plastic surgery in Hollywood is…?” you answered, “…Dangerous. Surgery is not glamorous; I would say plastic surgery is anything but glamorous. It’s really hard, and then it becomes a burden because you feel like you need to keep up with it and you don’t!”
“If I could take it back I would. I hope that people really hear what I am saying about plastic surgery, and I hope that people hear that I really would take it all back, and I hope that they hear that I risked….everything…for vanity.”
Darlene, you can again be proud of the daughter you raised whom you described when you saw her for the first time after her 10 surgeries as a “brilliant, articulate woman…with a very sore jaw.” She has educated millions of potential plastic surgery patients, and as importantly, some of the world’s plastic surgeons including myself.
Potential plastic surgery patients should heed Heidi’s words, and once they decide upon plastic surgery, most importantly spend the time and effort required to choose their surgeon most carefully.
On this Thanksgiving, I pray that you forgive each other and re-establish your one and only mother-daughter relationship.
Best to you and your family,
Michael A. Persky, MD
Encino, CA
Dr Persky is located in Encino, California but services all of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Including, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Malibu, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Calabasas, Woodland Hills, Tarzana and Agoura Hills and more.
