Patients always come in and ask me, “What do I need?” The first thing I say to them is, “Why don't you tell what you see that you don't like?” It always surprises me where I'll see something that's just glaring to me. I mean, they've got, you know, an angry scowl on their face and they look, you know, mean and unhappy and all they're worried about is their lips are too small. So, and I understand that, and you know I'll say, “Well, we can enhance your lips.” And I also am very good at saying to somebody, “You know, your lips are just fine for the shape of your face.”

And that's really, when you're asking about what kind of a doctor should a patient look for; the first thing above all else is he has to be somewhat of an artist. If a guy in cosmetic or a woman in cosmetic dermatology doesn't have a visual image of his, in his mind, of what a face, an ideal face should look like, and what the proportions of that are and the features, how the features balance, and then be able to look at you and say, “What can I do to get her appearance to approximate the ideal and what tools do I have to do that?”

That's the essence of a good doctor. If he is just there to shoot a little Botox in your forehead and pocket some money, that's not a good guy. And, you know, sometimes patients want Botox, and I say, “You know, you really got a very quiet forehead and you don't, you don't have an evil scalp but you have dark shadows under your eyes and those make you look exhausted and tired, and those, we can fix.” And patients go, “Wow!” And, you know, I said, “You can spend your money any way you want and I can certainly do both but what I see is this, you know, not that.” So, I want the patient to tell me a little bit about what they see and then, I will be honest with them and tell them what I see.

What Should Patients Ask Their Doctor When Considering Cosmetic Treatment?

Dr. Stephen Mandy covers what patients should ask their doctor when considering cosmetic treatment.