Oh, By The Way
CNN has some deal with a plastic surgeon named Anthony Youn. He is a plastic surgeon in metro Detroit who wrote a book called “In Stitches,” a humorous memoir about growing up Asian-American and becoming a doctor. He had a huge PR company push that book out to the masses (they even paid a little money to have an ad on this blog at one time). And he now gets to have a column with a big media company. Everyone wants to be the funny doctor, I guess. His piece on CNN.com about blaming the patients for long waits at the doctor’s office is, well, interesting. I mean he makes some valid points but there is something that bugs me about it. Now I know I have some plastic surgeon followers of this blog so this may piss you off. Here is my issue with Dr. Youn. Don’t talk about your life as a plastic surgeon as if you were in the trenches of medicine. Dude, you chose your field for the lifestyle and money. Yes, you trained many years and you still want to help people. I get that. There is nothing wrong with what you do and you are very much needed but please don’t pretend you know what it is like to be a grunt seeing the amount of patients (with complications) that we primary care docs do. Dr. Youn, you are not some regular doc. Even if you bought your way on to CNN, you can’t have it both ways.
I second Ben’s comments. As one of those “fancy” plastic surgeon (ex trauma surgeon) I too trained for a bunch of years to get to this point. While alot of the FPs were leaving residency after three years, I had a 7 more to go, plus in the days before 80 hour residency work weeks. I see every bad hand, ugly wound that no one wants to treat , smelly decub, broken jaw, ripped eyelid, etc etc etc, and occasionally a breast aug that isn’t a reconstruction. Plus patients expect to have no scars. Meanwhile, at our hospitals, the medical guys, including FPs, stay in bed while the “hospitalists” take care of the ER admissions. Unfortunately, they don’t sew up wounds or lacerated wrists at 4 am, so I’m the one getting out of bed. The vast majority of plastic surgeons are just like me. Working hard to take care of patients, not porsches.. So, if you want to join it, be my guest..
Doug you hit it right on the head. I did witness what I thought
was a prima donna plastics person do thousands of dollars of hand
surgery on a working class joe who was injured through no fault of his own. After 5 operations the patient kept asking for a bill and he finally saw one for $250.00.
I do agree that they shouldn’t be acting like a physcian in the trenches especially when a lot of the elective work is basically cash only.
Not pissed off just correcting errors
I agree family docs are underpaid
But I will correct the lifestyle and money comment
You have been watching too much Dr 90210
Yes Beverly Hills docs make$$ but less than half are bc plastic surgeons
The average plastic surgeon makes the average of specialists; far less than ortho rad and ames
Those of us older did not go into it for money or lifestyle. We did not know incomes
we did 7 years residency under the old system.
and lifestyle daily call
Appreciate the feedback. Listen, I am jealous of a lot of what you do and get paid for. My issue is that this dude can’t on one hand get double what I get paid in a less hectic schedule and then on the other hand write about being in the trenches.
Well said.