Not the Experience I Had Hoped for

As a healthcare professional myself, I feel inclined to share my experience to help anyone else looking for guidance. I was seeking a revision rhinoplasty 22 years after my primary due to a deviated septum but had no real functional issues with breathing and just wanted a straight nose. Dr Afrooz seemed caring and interested in my case and initially I felt comfortable. I used his Instagram page, google review and real self reviews to do my homework on him. What I have come to realize is that he was much more interested in criticizing my original nose than on preparing and educating me on the plan to fix it. There were no computer morphs done like other surgeons do and no real explanation to me on how to fix my issues. I just trusted he knew what he was doing however, I should have done more research myself on grafts but you don’t know what you don’t know. The day of surgery came, he rushed in with his laptop as I was on the surgery prep table and on his laptop there was my profile picture on it. He took 5 seconds to show me on his computer how he planned to change my bridge but it wasn’t a morph, it was a line drawn on my nose picture. I was shaking and super nervous as they were about to give me anesthesia and saw the office pictures he was pointing too but again no real plan discussed. Surgery took longer than expected and he told me needed to take some rib cartilage for my reconstruction. After surgery, I was in what I would consider to be an expected amount of pain and discomfort but nothing pain meds couldn’t handle. There was a follow up a week later for my cast and stent removal which he was NOT present for as he was out of the office that day which was disappointing to me. When my cast came off I knew I had made a huge mistake. I could tell I had a totally different looking face. My nose was definitely straight but what hadn’t been discussed was the plan for my tip. I honestly didn’t think that would be changing that much as my primary concern was my deviated septum but at the cast removal I could see a huge chunk of rib cartilage which I now know to be called a tip graft attached to my tip of my nose giving me a very pointed look. The nurse in his office who removed my cast assured me it was just swelling but I knew better. Retrospectively, what I have come to evaluate was a lack of communication about aesthetics. What Dr Afrooz thought looked good to him is not at all what I wanted. There should have been more discussion on technique and if he wasn’t the doctor to help me he should have said so. At cast removal, I didn’t look like myself and now not to mention because how pointy my nose is it, I’m having difficulty breathing because of all the added bulky cartilage grafts. Also, now when I smile the tip graft shows through my skin as a white triangle. Fast forward to 6 months later when I request my full patient file from his office to start getting second opinions to get all this fixed. Instead of giving me my file, the office schedules another video phone visit with Dr Afrooz. During this call, I again express my functional difficulties with breathing and dissatisfaction with the overall aesthetic of my new nose. I stated that adding a pointy tip and rim grafts to someone’s nose should have been discussed prior to surgery for my opinion and if I would have been educated in everything he was going to do I probably would have changed my mind and not gone through with this at all. That’s when things changed with this doctor’s attitude. Instead of listening to my feedback he quickly went to a defensive position and stated to me he had concerns about my mental health and then proceeded to say he could correct my issues in an additional surgery but he was also extremely concerned with what he described as “dragging his name through the mud” if I remained unsatisfied. Now mind you, I have meet with this doctor a total of possibly 4 times up to this point, and mostly on video calls, so for him to have this insight into my mental state was unbelievable and offensive to me. It’s like he reached into his playbook of how to deal with an unhappy patient and this is what was in his list of things to say. Needless to say, I found his comments not only insulting but completely dismissive of my situation. I had paid over $20K for this surgery and don’t feel like this was the outcome I was expecting so of course anyone who did the same would be upset. I’m not one to leave reviews but in this situation I feel inclined to do so. I find it so disappointing that this is the doctor I chose to do this surgery and he treated me so disrespectfully after the fact. You can tell the character of someone when things become challenging or a surgery doesn’t go as expected. Sometimes poor outcomes are due to bad healing, or this situation poor communication and not solely on surgical techniques, but at the end of the day, a patient should always feel respected. Good doctors make plans and are good educators. To all those out there looking at reviews to help guide your journey, I hope this helps. Trust your gut, get computerized morphs as a way to communicate what YOU want, speak to previous patients if you can, get a thorough explanation of the plan for your surgery and then get good follow up care with a doctor who is kind and genuinely wants you to be happy. Learn from my mistakes. Feel free to email me for pictures of what I have detailed here.