What Our Surgeons Are Up To During Quarantine

May 12, 2020

As you might have read in Dr. Lista’s recent personal message, while our clinic is currently closed, our surgeons are really missing the best part of their jobs: the privilege of being chosen to join our patients on their life-changing journeys. Even though they’re unable to work at the clinic for the time being, they have been finding ways to not just keep busy but to keep up with what they love.

Dr. Lista was invited to give a lecture about breast reduction via Zoom to 300 young plastic surgeons in India. They spent over 2 hours reviewing the science and techniques used in vertical breast reduction procedures, which Dr. Lista helped pioneer. This technique creates a better result with minimal scarring and helped revolutionize the operation. Even though physically separated, he could still share experience from our clinic with new surgeons halfway around the world. Pretty amazing!

More recently, Dr. Lista took part in a webinar with the Aesthetic Surgery Journal as part of their Journal Club to present his paper on breast augmentation using the safest smooth, round implants now available. He explained that it used to be the case that implants were placed either above or below the muscle only. With the advent of the subfascial technique, in many case we’re now able to achieve an even better, natural looking result. This technique, which our surgeons have studied extensively, is a real game changer.

The webinar, also hosted by our very own Dr. Ryan Austin, broke Journal Club records with the most attendees ever. We’re super proud of this fact, since it means our research and publications are helping educate an even greater number of other plastic surgeons around the world, and best of all, we’re so glad to help contribute to great results for patients everywhere.

So, what else has Dr. Austin been up to? The webinar with Dr. Lista was one among many he’s been hosting, not only with the Aesthetic Surgery Journal, but also with the Journal Club at the University of Toronto Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Other topics covered with that group have included distal radius fractures, ulnar nerve injuries and nerve transfers, the management of open hand fractures, and hand therapy referral patterns—basically all things hand surgery, one of Dr. Austin’s areas of expertise.

He’s also been carefully suited up in PPE to work on-call for emergencies at St. Joseph’s Health Centre. What sort of work does that entail? He treats broken bones, or severed tendons and nerves in hands, and even reattaches fingers; rebuilds complex wounds after cancer, trauma, diabetes, or surgery; treats patients with harmful skin conditions, like necrotizing fasciitis; and removes skin cancers, among many other procedures.

PPE selfie courtesy of Dr. Austin

For viewers at home, Dr. Austin has gone live on Instagram with Dr. Ahmad to talk about the mommy makeover procedure as well as the drainless tummy tuck technique we pioneered in Canada and published in Aesthetic Surgery Journal.

And speaking of Dr. Ahmad, he has been more than living up to his role as Director of Research and Education at The Plastic Surgery Clinic by sharing information with his over 15k Instagram following. Every week he’s going live with surgeons and aesthetic medical experts from Dallas, San Francisco, Colombia and beyond. So if you want to know about current international conversations about cosmetic surgery (from the operations you’re interested in, to the effects of COVID-19 on medical practitioners more generally) they’re pretty much all happening with Dr. Ahmad throughout quarantine.

He’s also moderated live discussions, including a special topic for plastic surgeons about practicing after COVID-19 with experiences from the U.K., as well as another topic about preparing to return to our offices and the importance of helping staff feel prepared and safe coming back to work. We’re so glad to be able to participate in crucial knowledge sharing like this during these unprecedented times.

And like Dr. Austin, Dr. Ahmad has been on-call, supporting his University of Toronto surgical residents while maintaining safe practices to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Dr. Ahmad with residents Adam and Monica

You can keep up with all of their informative, helpful and interesting activities by following @drfranklista, @draustin_prs and @drjahmad on Instagram. They love answering your questions and hearing about what you’re up to and what you’re looking forward to.