BEAUTE Clinic Plastic surgery Anthony Griffin talks about trends in aesthetic medicine and promising areas of beautification
The St. Petersburg plastic surgery market remains on the rise, showing growth of up to 50% per year in some segments. At the same time, doctors note that in the last few years, patients’ approach to correcting their appearance has changed dramatically. More and more clients of aesthetic medicine clinics strive for natural forms of the face and body and consciously form requests for results. In an interview with Tech Facts, a plastic surgeon spoke about the possibilities of plastic surgery in postpartum recovery, beauty criteria in Moscow, and the connection between lifestyle and plastic surgery.
Beneficial symbiosis
— How is the aesthetic medicine market doing today?
The demand for plastic surgery is growing, and this is true not only on the scale but also on the global scale. According to my estimates, the patient flow of in-demand surgeons working in well-known clinics is growing by an average of 50% per year, but I would not extrapolate these figures to the entire city market. The reason is that people’s attitudes toward this segment of medicine are changing; plastic surgery is no longer considered an excess but rather another tool for maintaining health and beauty. More and more people want to use it but can also use it because their financial capabilities are expanding.
— What are the current trends dominating the field of aesthetic medicine today?
— Firstly, patients’ desire for naturalness results in the growth in demand for reconstructive surgery. In my observations, most patients are women aged 25 and older, usually already mothers and seeking to return to their “pre-baby” appearance if any changes in appearance occur after childbirth. In this case, they can do sports and eat right, but some things cannot be restored by sports. For example, in the presence of diastasis, also some women are faced with excess skin on the abdomen and sides; someone wants to restore the shape of the breast after breastfeeding if changes occur. And here, plastic surgery comes to the rescue.
— So, is plastic surgery in the most demand today among middle-aged patients?
— It depends on the type of surgery. For example, most of the patients of a facelift surgeon will most likely be aged 45–65 since this is when some patients may begin to experience changes in their natural facial shapes. Postpartum recovery specialists are probably mostly approached by 25–45-year-olds. And what is important is that such patients take “plastic surgery” very seriously and thoughtfully. They know exactly what they want and come with specific wishes concerning recovery.
The trend is towards natural results
— It turns out that awareness and naturalness are another current trend in the plastic surgery market.
— Perhaps, yes, and this is a very new trend. For example, everyone knows that you can enlarge your breasts by installing implants. But not everyone has heard that you can change the shape of your breasts using your own fat tissue without resorting to silicone. And when a person understands that he has a choice in favor of a more natural restoration, he makes it.
This is an excellent example of a responsible and conscious attitude to your body, health, and beauty. Yes, you can use the possibilities of “plastic surgery” and get a “freak” result, for example, a seventh-size breast, and there are doctors who will do this. But this is more of an exception than a rule because most patients and specialists live in the natural beauty paradigm. This is a distinctive feature of our plastic surgery, our patients,
— Oddly enough, yes, it is precisely the people who have the most, let’s say, delicate and modest wishes and the most pronounced desire for naturalness, an unnoticeable result. For example, in Moscow, the demands are a little different; the average volume of implants is even a little larger than in St. Petersburg. Of course, it is even larger somewhere in Brazil or North America, but this is a fairly objective criterion that allows us to discuss the difference in aesthetic ideas about beauty.
— What do you think this is connected with?
— I think there is a whole complex of reasons. This includes the concentration of specialists focused on a certain result and a set of internal ideas about aesthetics, beauty, and characteristics of a particular city or country’s residents.
Postpartum Recovery
— What plastic surgeries for postpartum recovery are most in demand now?
— First, mammoplasty in its broadest form: lifts, restoration, and augmentation of breast volume, shape correction. For these purposes, implants are used, and the lipofilling method is increasingly used, which consists of using the patient’s own fat tissue taken from other areas. Secondly, all options for body correction since it undergoes the greatest changes in the postpartum period. And also plastic surgery of the intimate area.
Although this is not the most well-known type of surgical intervention, which is due to certain taboos regarding the popularization of this part of the body and aspect of a person’s life, such operations can actually affect changes in self-esteem and self-awareness of a woman, restoring her self-confidence, attractiveness, and feminine principle.
— Is it possible to completely restore the natural shape of the body after childbirth using surgery?
Combination of procedures
— Combined operations, on the one hand, are optimization, but on the other hand, they also carry risk. How is the maximum possible volume of combined interventions determined?
— It all depends on each individual patient. The limit is the expected duration of the operation, as there are restrictions on the safe stay of the patient under continuous anesthesia. In our clinic, it is 6-8 hours. A fairly long body lift operation can take exactly 5-8 hours. If we understand that in an individual situation, for this particular patient, we can combine a body lift with, for example, mammoplasty, then we will combine these operations. If we understand that we “don’t have time,” then, of course, we divide the planned procedures into stages, first do one operation, then wait on average up to six months until the recovery period is over, and perform the next one.
The desire to do everything simultaneously, condescendingly treating the patient’s safety and thereby increasing his risks, is a categorically wrong approach.
— Which operations go best together?
— How does the recovery process go after such operations?
— The more extensive the intervention, the more difficult the recovery period will be. As a rule, patients undergoing complex surgeries remain in the hospital at the clinic for several days, under observation. The most difficult postoperative period, when the patient feels heaviness, lethargy, and weakness, is traditionally the first 7-10 days. After 2-2.5 weeks, a person already feels almost “as usual” and, at this stage, can return to work for household chores. However, regular sports are still recommended to be postponed for 1.5-3 months due to the existing standards for “entering” into physical activity.
Preparing for change
— There is an opinion that a person who has previously done sports tolerates the recovery period better. Is this statement true?
— Most likely, no, I don’t think so. Physical activity before pregnancy can help avoid problems that make women turn to plastic surgeons, like diastasis, for example. But it has to be a serious sport, and only a few do it. But here’s what’s interesting: after the surgery, many patients start doing fitness and running; in short, they increase their physical activity many times over and switch to healthy eating. Even those who used to avoid the gym change their habits. A successful surgery motivates and encourages people to maintain and improve the results they get from the surgery, and many change their lifestyles dramatically.
— How do you think the attitude towards plastic surgery and operations will change in the future?
— I am sure that people’s interest in the possibilities of aesthetic medicine will grow, and the demand for plastic surgeons’ services will at least not decrease. I do not undertake to predict the emergence of fundamentally new technologies and methods because, at the moment, I do not see any prerequisites for breakthroughs in this area.
Today, the industry’s future depends on changing human ideas about beauty. In our country, this is the development of reconstructive surgery, and somewhere, for example, in South Korea, there is a boom in transformative surgery, interventions that specifically change appearance: the shape of the eyes, the shape of the cheekbones. But I am sure of one thing — the professional development of any plastic surgeon in the future will be subordinated to the principles of beauty and harmony, despite the great subjectivity present in our specialty.
