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I want to focus . . .
Doctor John Tebbetts has been in practice in Dallas, Forth Worth since 1979. He's seen
his field of breast augmentation change dramatically during those years and he's been key in many
of the advancements.
I just saw an opportunity in that particular area. I thought that the operation, the way
we educate patients, the way that we do the operations, there was just an opportunity
to take that particular one area and make a greater change within my practice lifetime
than I could do anywhere else.
One of the first ways he found to advance his profession was to apply principles of
process engineering and proven business and industry methods, and apply them to surgery.
Like uniform measurement of a breast and not just generic cup size.
To build a system that other surgeons can use. Build a system that makes you more consistent.
Then once you have the system then you get to go and execute the operation. And with
the operation it's a matter of doing as much planning before you get in that operating
room. You don't need to be planning, and thinking, and doing things in there that you could have
done earlier. Then your patient stays asleep longer, gets more unnecessary drugs. It's
refinement of all those things and you can't do just some of them.
Your doing great. Everything went very, very smoothly and your waking up.
Another way doctor Tebbetts has impacted his industry is by education of the patient.
There are so many options and so many advances that patients really need to understand before
they make critical decisions about having an operation. Your going to alter your body
for your lifetime. So, whether it's where we make the incision, the implant shell type,
or filler, the pocket location, all of those things are going to affect your overall long
term results.
The implant itself is of major importance.
This is a round, smooth-shell, saline, implant. These implants were available when I started
practice in 1979. This is a round, smooth, silicone, gel-filled, implant. It was also
available. And the basic characteristics of these implants are exactly the same today
as they were then. This particular implant, you'll notice if I turn this implant upward,
you see how the implant collapses vertically. If a shell folds, that fold can rub against
itself on surfaces and in time wear through the shell. So, what we did was we just changed
some things about the device. This happens to be a shaped device and in order to not
have the excessive bulge at the upper part of the breast from more filler, we had to
taper the upper pole. It is true that if you take a pair of scissors and you cut a wedge
out of this device, it's intact.
And then, there's the surgery.
If we're going to improve the entire patient experience we have to improve every part of
it. And thinking about recovery, the obvious thought is the more drugs that a patient receives,
the drowsier she's going to be, the more nauseated she's going to be. If we could look at what
we're doing and shorten the length of the surgery, the patient would get less drugs.
And as we eliminated unnecessary stuff we were doing, we also realized there were things
we were doing that were causing more bleeding and more trauma.
Doctor Tebbetts has now perfected and refined his technique to what he calls '24 hour recovery'.
He can literally do a surgery in the morning, and see that same patient go out to dinner,
or go shopping that same night.
It truly is amazing.