The second question women ask about breast implants at consultation [Urmen Desai, MD, Beverly Hills]

Eva Sheie (00:04):
Welcome to the podcast, Where Before Meets After. Submit your questions for our experts at wherebeforemeetsafter.com. I'm your host, Eva Sheie.

Dr. Desai (00:15):
My name is Urmen Desai. I am a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, California.

Eva Sheie (00:20):
What is the most common question that women ask you when they come to see you for breast augmentation? What's the first thing?

Dr. Desai (00:28):
The first thing they ask me is what is a gummy bear implant? Because I talk about it a lot on social media, and when you use the word gummy bear, that's usually associated with a candy. But now we're using that term in the midst of surgery, a medical procedure. So the two things don't really mesh so well, but it piques their interest.

Eva Sheie (00:55):
So you talk about gummy bears a lot. What are gummy bear implants?

Dr. Desai (01:00):
So gummy bear implants are highly cohesive silicone gels. So the earlier generations of breast implants were more of a liquid type of silicone. But now in 2023, the silicone is a little bit more of a solid gel, highly cohesive, much like a gummy bear candy. So I tell patients the older silicone implants are like an iPhone four. The gummy bear implants are like an iPhone 14.

Eva Sheie (01:28):
What about the silicone implants from the eighties? What are those? They're like a rotary phone.

Dr. Desai (01:32):
Yeah, exactly. Those are a conch eggshell from the beach.

Eva Sheie (01:39):
So do you do anything other than silicone gel implants?

Dr. Desai (01:43):
On occasion, I'll do saline implants. But saline implants are a little bit different in the sense that you can see more rippling, have more complications. Sometimes they pop or leak, whereas you don't see that as frequently with the silicone gummy bear implants.

Eva Sheie (01:59):
So if I had to guess what the second question would be after gummy bears, iswhat's the right size for me? Am I right? Is that usually the next question?

Dr. Desai (02:07):
You're absolutely right because I think a lot of women fear that they're going to look too big or too fake or have two oranges stuck on them. And I think because of some things they might see on social media and some bad outcomes, and I think bad things on social media get more traction than good things, unfortunately. And so I think they're just scared of looking too big and too fake.

Eva Sheie (02:29):
If they ask you for that, will you do it?

Dr. Desai (02:32):
I won't because I don't necessarily want my name associated with things like that, and that's not my style.

Eva Sheie (02:37):
No. Do you find them as people who come to what your style is already?

Dr. Desai (02:42):
Yeah, I mean, not just my style, but they know me and my background, they know my staff. And it's like, I think you and I might've talked about this in the past where I do a lot of social media, so when they come to the office, it's as if they're on the set of friends where they know the members of my team, and they know what office looks like, and they know how I put on the virtual reality goggles, and they know my taglines and things like that. So they kind of already know what to expect. Almost like online shopping. You go online before you go to IKEA, you might scroll through the IKEA website and then you walk into IKEA and make your purchase. Or before you go to your Porsche dealer, you go to the Porsche website, select your Porsche, and then go to the dealer and say, okay, that's the one I want.

Eva Sheie (03:25):
Makes sense. Did you set out to do social media that way, or did it just sort of evolve?

Dr. Desai (03:30):
I think it evolved. Like right when you graduate residency, you have no income, you're on a budget. And so I wasn't ready to build a very expensive website, which you and I have discussed in the past or spend all this money on SEO and pay per-click. So Instagram was just blowing up back then. And so that's what I did for fun personally, but also for the business. And it just kind of continues to evolve. And now it's of course part of a doctor's brand, so very vital.

Eva Sheie (04:00):
It is. And they often will tell me their Instagram before their website. It's more important now.

Dr. Desai (04:07):
And I ask every single patient when they walk in, the first question is, how did you find me? And a lot of them say Instagram. And it's funny because talking to patients recently, I say how on Instagram and they say, oh, everything I do, all my searches are on Instagram. I say, even if you want a burrito, they say, yeah, I type in burrito on the hashtag burrito and the geolocator, and they look at pictures of the burrito and they'll say, I like that burrito. They'll click on it and they say, okay, that's 20 minutes from my house. And they'll go there and get that burrito. They're not using Google anymore. They're not using Yelp anymore. They'll use Instagram for everything.

Eva Sheie (04:43):
Wow.

Dr. Desai (04:43):
So the Instagram search bar is the new Google search bar. Interesting, huh?

Eva Sheie (04:48):
It's not for me. I use it a totally different way, but I'm not

Dr. Desai (04:52):
20. Yeah, you're not an LA girl in her twenties. Right? So everybody's different. That's important. Everybody's different. And you have to find your niche and find out how you want to get those patients, if you even want those patients.

Eva Sheie (05:04):
Exactly. Where can we find you on Instagram?

Dr. Desai (05:08):
My Instagram handle is @DesaiPlasticSurgery, D-E-S-A-I, Plastic surgery. That's where you can see most of my work and get in touch with me, slide into the dms. Come visit Beverly Hills, California.

Eva Sheie (05:20):
Thank you, Dr. Desai. On this podcast, we bring you directly to the doctors who are where before meets after. Links to our guest's website and contact info are in your show notes. Follow us on Instagram @wherebeforemeetsafter. If you're a board certified plastic surgeon and would like to be a guest or a sponsor of the show, go to wherebeforemeetsafter.com for more information. Where Before Meets After is a production of The Axis, the podcast agency for aesthetics, theaxis.io.