What should I look for in a breast surgeon? [Austin Hayes, MD, Portland]

Dr. Hayes (00:00):
My name's Austin Hayes. I'm a plastic surgeon in Portland, Oregon.

Eva Sheie (00:04):
To many, it seems like breast augmentation is what I would call settled science, like there's a way. And it's the oldest plastic surgery procedure, one of them, right? It's been done hundreds of thousands, if not millions of times.

Dr. Hayes (00:18):
Correct.

Eva Sheie (00:19):
And I think there's maybe a feeling among the public, or especially if you read in social media groups where women are talking about it, there's just a way, or there's several ways it's done and that those techniques aren't necessarily advancing. But what I think you're saying is they're always advancing and that there's people like you and like Sigalove, and I can think of a few others who are figuring out how to make it even better all the time.

Dr. Hayes (00:50):
Yeah. I think that every surgeon has their own evolution. Well it's no different than being a tradesman, tradesperson being an electrician, plumber, all of these trades. It depends who your mentors are, and you probably, you start your trade with the techniques that your mentors taught you, and then you slowly begin to innovate. And a double sewn fold, that was my innovation, or at least to my knowledge, I mean, I've never seen anybody else do it, but I learned to sew the fold from a plastic surgeon in Sydney, Australia. So when you're looking, you just start to pick up on these techniques and innovate, and innovate and look, and when you see the problems, then you just try to start solving them.

Eva Sheie (01:33):
But not all of you solve the problems. There's a lot of plastic surgeons who just keep doing what they learned in school.

Dr. Hayes (01:41):
Yeah, and for them, if it works, that's fantastic. I think that everybody has their different path and everybody's patients wants something different. And the cool thing about this is that there's a patient out there for everyone. Every patient has a different goal and a different thing that they're looking for, and they'll find their match if they keep looking. And so that kind of brings us for full circle back to, I have this very specific group of patients because my pathway is this way, and our paths happen to intersect. They like what I'm doing, and we're a match. And yeah, not every plastic surgeon innovates, or probably the great majority of them do, but they innovate for something that works for them. And so I'm innovating for the challenges that I see that bother me in particular.

Eva Sheie (02:31):
I think innovating is the effect and the cause is that you saw something that you couldn't ignore and you had to solve for what that thing was.

Dr. Hayes (02:40):
Totally, totally. Yeah. I was at a facial plastic surgeon here in Portland, had an open house last week, and I happened to see one of our anesthetists there, and he was commenting on that, and yeah, it's totally that. It's seeing it and not being able to unsee it. And on some level you have to not only see it, but it has to frustrate you. You know, you end up scratching your own itch. So it's the people who become frustrated by the smallest things, or I become frustrated by the smallest things that I see in my results. And so that pushes me to innovate because I don't, I want to get beyond those. And so yeah, that's the total driver. And to stay interested, it just keeps me, if I don't have something I'm working on, I should say, I'm more interested when I'm working on something and I'm getting better at something. So I usually have one thing that I'm working on in each of my operations that I do.

Eva Sheie (03:33):
That's just during the day. You're always working on something else when you're not at work.

Dr. Hayes (03:38):
I try. Yeah.

Eva Sheie (03:40):
Where can we find your Instagram? What's your handle?

Dr. Hayes (03:43):
At Dr. and then my name Austin, A-U-S-T-I-N. Hayes, H-A-Y-E-S. That's my Instagram. That's the best place to find me.

Eva Sheie (03:51):
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. Where Before. Meets After is a production of The Axis, the podcast agency for aesthetics, theaxis.io.