Narrator: Why is it so important to find a specialist for my cosmetic procedure?
Robert Kotler, MD: What you're really looking for is mastery. Mastery, meaning that doctor has pretty much mastered the subject, and ideally the subject that you're interested in.
You can't master all 140 operations that one might be expected to do when you complete a residency.
It's impossible. It's more complicated than ever, because there are more procedures, more products, more technology.
Robert Kotler, MD (cont.): So you want somebody who is working off a very small menu. I think ideally, you want a boutique practice, not a department store.
Which means a doctor may limit himself to 5 or 6 procedures and that's it. The fewer the better, because he's going to be better at it, because he's doing it all the time.
Robert Kotler, MD (cont.): Repetition breeds excellence. It's like practice and basketball. The more you play, the better you're going to be.
And those doctors also are so focused on what they do, they assemble a very highly specialized team. That's very important. They have a very small core of helpers.
They have their own surgical assistant. They work with just a handful of anesthesiologists, so everybody works like a well tuned machine.
And that's exactly the way you want it, because it translates into safety and efficiency. And efficiency is important.
Robert Kotler, MD (cont.): Why have an operation that takes six hours and someone else can do it in three and get the same good result? And the operation that is done in three hours,
I can guarantee you is done by somebody that does a lot of the operation, and the operation that takes 6 hours all other things equal is done by someone
less specialized and therefore less skilled. And time is important. It's less time under anesthesia, as safe as anesthesia is, it's better to be under less than more.
Less bruising, less swelling, less trauma to the tissue, that translates into faster healing, back into the work force, back into social activities, so it all comes together.
Robert Kotler, MD (cont.): The master surgeons, the ones who have mastered the area in which they have chosen to work will have consistently the same qualities in their practice, staffing, focus,
whatever research and writing they do for the medical journals will be in a limited array of subjects. I know some fantastic reconstruction surgeons,
the kind of doctor I'd want to go to if I were in a car accident that wouldn't be my first choice to have a nose job or a face lift. Two different worlds.
