Session 32 Dr. Russell Babbitt is a Plastic Surgeon in private practice for the last seven years. He took the time to share with us his thoughts on what he likes and what he doesn't like about it and what you, as a premed or medical student, should start doing now to become a better applicant for Plastic Surgery. [01:18] His Love of Plastics Around that time when the show ER was popular, Russell started medical school thinking he wanted to do Emergency Medicine but realized it wasn't for him. Instead, he liked doing surgical rotation along with his plastic surgery rotation which he describes as gelling very well. He also started college as an art major so the visual-spatial aspects really appealed to him once he got into plastics because it wasn't just a cookbook, do-this-do-that case but it involves applying spatial problems to different situations which appealed to him. The second he got onto his plastic rotation, he knew it was where he needed to be. Russell went to UMass for medical school and during their third year surgery rotations, they had a three-month block spent on general surgery and the other half was subdivided into other subspecialties. Many of them ended up rotating through plastics. Other specialties he did consider include general surgery and vascular surgery. He likes the disease processes in general and being able to intervene into a lot of different illnesses and have the ability to take care of sick people across the board. Ultimately, he was meaning to be a well-rounded surgeon and the fact that plastics builds on that was nice. [04:30] Traits Leading to Becoming a Good Plastic Surgeon Russell cites meticulousness as the primary trait of becoming a good plastic surgeon as well as being a good visual-spatial thinker. Being a good communicator is also very important since. You need to be willing to sit down with the patient and explain the disease process, the problems, the solutions, how you're going to get there, oftentimes, there are many ways to get there and there's many different things that can happen. Russell further explains that the doctors who don't communicate tend to have more difficulties regardless of what the outcomes are and this is especially true in plastics. Beyond that, you also have to be a good technician and be able to develop a plan, know what you're going to do, and see the technical problem you're going to solve and actually execute it. Also, you must be able to see the long term outcome, not just the proper three-dimensional result but it has to look good three to four months and years down the road. Blood supply also has to be intact at the end of the day. One of his mentors once told him that when he's out in private practice, one of the things he has to do is while doing a skin graft, you have to make sure every mitochondria survives. "You have to just be really meticulous in every single thing that you do and that people are watching and the patients are watching. That's one of the things people look for in a plastic surgeon." Russell adds that another innate trait in a plastic surgeon is being anal. In terms of having an arts background, although not necessary when you become a plastic surgeon, a lot of people that go into medicine in general tend to be very agile-thinkers so Russell thinks a lot of it can be taught. But he personally thinks it helps a lot in terms of little shortcuts that allows him to know what to do before he even thinks about it. This may also help in certain other areas where it would have been hard to to teach it. [09:00] Types of Patients and Typical Day Russell sees a mix of 50% cosmetic and 50% reconstructive patients. To his surprise, he's doing a lot of breast reconstruction. They have a very busy breast reconstructive program where he's the director at a local hospital. This was something he didn't expect to be doing a lot but he ended up doing it anyway. The reason for breast reconstruction is almost always breast cancer in various stages or i