I have needed this done for years. Finally I went for a consult and was shocked to learn that my insurance would indeed pay for the surgery. At first, I was a little intimidated by Dr. Chen. However, I quickly learned that this woman is a truly dedicated perfectionist. It has been a year since my surgery and I can say first of all that it was the best thing I have ever done. SINCE the operation, I was able to lose about forty pounds. I could fit into normal clothes and could actually exercise! Me! A woman in her late 50s! And my surgical results are just gorgeous. My scars are minimal. My breasts are really pretty and are even. She spent 4.5 hours with me on the table. She is an artist. And my aftercare was managed with optimal healing in mind. No complications whatsoever. I would send ANYONE to Dr Chen. She can be brisk at first, but that's because she's focused and thinking hard about YOU. Oh and also, she at no time tried to "up sell" me with other things or make me feel like I needed to have a bunch of other stuff done. She's blunt and honest. No slick sales job. I trust her. You can too.
I was a B cup most of my life until perimenopause hit. The past three to four years have been miserable living with DDD breasts. My sympathies go out to those of you who have had large breasts your whole lives. I have experienced lots of upper back, shoulder and neck pain with large breasts. I've always been athletic and never wanted to be anything more than a B, so I requested a B/C outcome from my surgeon (although my understanding is that they cannot guarantee cup size since they also work with size, shape, blood supply and other issues during the surgery). I've been helped by the reviews and Q&As on this site and am now joining at 9 days post op. I feel it was the right decision already.
First of all forgive me for the image you will see, but is important so you understand better what she did to me, It took me years to be able to tell my story. My experience with Dr Chen was more than “traumatizing” and I’m still working in my recover. I wish I could give a “zero” because she doesn’t deserves not even 1 star. So in 2016 after founding out that I was BRAC1 gen carrier (which meant that I had a really high risk to developing breast cancer). I was devastated with the news, I just moved to Utah and after speaking with different doctors I decided that I wanted my Breast to be removed and go through reconstruction. I found Dr. Chen, went to my consultation and all the plan sounded good. My surgery was going to be in two faces: 1st a breast surgeon would remove all my breast tissue and prepare my breast so 2nd Dr Chen could insert an expander that after two weeks of my surgery, Dr Chen would start injecting a saline solution little by little (every two weeks) so my skin recovered from the tissue removal trauma and I could go in a second surgery to replace the expander with an implant. The day of the surgery was the most scary and devastated day of my whole life. When I woke after the surgery, I was prepared with the idea of not having volume in my breast but the expander inserted. I was horrified, Dr Chen inserted the expander and fill it up to the max and my skin was totally distress and hurt from so much CC,s. (which was totally the opposite of the plan). My breast was almost in my throat. The same night my breast started to get purple and I was sooooo scared that asked every single personal of the hospital to call Dr. Chen. My skin was dying due to among of pressure on my breast. Dr. Chen never came to see me at the hospital and just told the nurses to use a cream on the purple zone. My bottom right breast die. She didn’t care and I was able to see her after 2 weeks when there was nothing else to do to safe that part of my breast. Dr Chen is a joke, she wanted to get skin from my back and put a flap (a patch) in the site where I got necrosis. Obviously I didn’t trust her anymore so desperately I beg a lot of other doctors to help me and nobody wanted to do nothing for me. However I found an excellent and kind plastic surgeon (my Angel) that was able to help me. He told me that he may needed to remove my nipple too due to the necrosis but thank God he did all to safe my nipple and did a great job to make my breast look better. That wasn’t the end of my journey, I have had 6 surgeries since then to try to fix as much as possible what she did to me. After all this story, I hope that you think more than twice before seeing her. There are so many doctors that you can go to, like my Angel. I will gladly give you his contact information just DM me. Thank you and God blessed you!
I highly encourage any and everyone to look elsewhere for care if you are looking for reconstruction after breast cancer and double mastectomy. Worst experience of my life and has since required 2 surgeries to correct her mistakes. Still, the mental abuse I experienced with Dr. Chen will never be forgotten.
I've seen 4 micro surgeons and she was by far the worst! So rude & condescending. I went for a consultation because I was botched by another surgeon. she suggested what to have him fix,he screwed up again so I returned to her to take her on as my new surgeon and she completely went back on what she said she would do if it didn't work out. She was arrogant, cut me off every time I tried to answer her, she has zero bedside manner. If you're not a size 2, RUN! I lost 90 lbs, was down to a very healthy weight, gained 20 back over the holidays and back on track & losing it again and she called me morbidly obese! NOT EVEN CLOSE! I've already been approved for DIEP surgery twice but the other micro surgeons royally screwed me over which is why I was trying again after 4 botched implant surgeries by my previous surgeon. Good luck, after reading all the recent horrible reviews, I can see she's a nightmare to deal with! MaryBeth, her nurse is the only compassionate person in this office!