 Hello, Psych2Go viewers. Our guest for today's live stream is Dr. Anthony Yoon, also referred to as America's Holistic Plastic Surgeon and the host of his own amazing YouTube channel. Dr. Yoon's content on plastic surgery, skincare advice and beauty standards has been viewed by millions of adoring fans due to being entertaining yet educational. Welcome, Dr. Yoon, thank you for joining us today. Well, thank you so much for having me on. Of course, you are a highly requested guest. People are so excited, especially our viewers to see you here today. Thanks, Michelle. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Yeah, so I'm a board certified plastic surgeon. I've been in private practice in the Detroit area for 20 years and I've been really involved with social media probably for the last seven or eight years. And prior to that, I did a lot of TV. I was on a lot of national TV shows. I've written three books and my next book is gonna come out in January called Younger for Life. Oh, that's amazing. Wow. And then my first question is on the topic of self-esteem is what are the pros and cons of cosmetic surgery and what should people consider before going under the knife? Yeah, I mean, the pros I think of plastic surgery is that it can improve people's quality of life. Now, I think that there are different schools of thought when you think about plastic surgery, there are the extremes. There are some people who are getting an insane amount of work done. Then there are people who are against it for everybody. And I think like most things in life, there is a reasonable medium somewhere. And the way that I explained to my followers is to use plastic surgery as a last resort. And that's always been the thing because the worst thing that can happen if you go under the knife is you can die. So we have to take it very, very seriously. And unfortunately there are people in our society, doctors, plastic surgeons who aren't taking it seriously enough. And I think it's so important for us to keep in mind that this isn't like getting your hair done or getting makeup, this is actual and actual surgery or a invasive cosmetic procedure. Absolutely. And then, so in what ways do you think that cosmetic surgery impacts a person's self-esteem for better or for worse? I think you can really help certain people who have very defined issues with self-esteem especially in their own self-image. So for example, I have a lot of patients in mind who have had let's say three or four children. And after having their kids, they look at their tummy and they've got a lot of loose hanging skin of their tummy. Now they still feel good about themselves. They're a mom, they love their children, they love their body and they don't have anybody who's telling them you should have this done. But themselves they may look in the mirror and say, geez, I would love to have the tummy closer to what I had before having the kids and not have to deal with stuffing this excess skin into my pants and all of that. And those situations by surgery can be very beneficial but it can be harmful for some people especially if they have underlying psychological concerns. There are people who have body dysmorphia where what they see in the mirror is different than what everybody else sees. And for some patients who have let's say body dysmorphia they may undergo multiple cosmetic surgeries as a way to try to treat a problem that they perceive as a problem that never really was there in the first place. And this can't get very dangerous, it can cause even patients sometimes to spiral psychologically because surgery was never really the treatment for them in the first place. Exactly and in that case you would probably recommend mental health treatment, right? Yeah, I mean, unfortunately I encourage a lot of people to seek therapy and I turn a lot of my patients down but I fear that they don't seek therapy that insight isn't necessarily, they don't necessarily have insight into what their issue is. And unfortunately a lot of them probably go to the doctor down the street and he'll do it for them if you ask him to. Awesome, no, that makes sense. And I love that like you in your videos you promote like ethical plastic surgery and do you think that like maybe surgeons should get like mental health training before completing their residency or, you know, upon graduating? I mean, honestly it's true that as plastic surgeons we are psychiatrists with scalpels but we don't really get a whole lot, we don't get anything that's truly formal. You know, when I did my training I did follow let's say cosmetic plastic surgeons and I saw how they treated patients and they taught to me about it and taught me but there's no true curriculum on that. At least when I went through training maybe there is some now but not to my knowledge. Do you think in some ways plastic surgery can alter someone's self-concept? I think it can alter so much of how you feel about yourself and this can be good and bad. You know, the worst thing is when I have patients who come to see me who've been botched and they went in for let's say something fairly minor and they come out feeling worse about themselves than when they went in. There's always that risk with surgery and that's something that really is something I talk with my patients always before we go into the knife. As I tell them, look worst case scenario it could look like this. Do you wanna take that risk? And in certain situations that risk is worthwhile for them in other situations it's not but these are discussions that should be had with patients prior to going under the knife and unfortunately they're not always had though. What do you think like motivates a plastic surgeon to not have those conversations? Maybe just turn a blind eye to it. Like even when they see that a patient could have like a mental health issue or body dysmorphia. It's two things, it's money and fame. So money is a big thing. People wanna make money and so there are doctors in my town where you ask them to do something and they'll do it. Doesn't matter what it is, they'll do it and they'll encourage you to do some more stuff so they can make more money off of you and that's just ethics. There are people who are performing plastic surgery who aren't real plastic surgeons. You have ER doctors, you have gynecologists, you have family doctors who ditch their chosen profession to masquerade as plastic surgeons because they make more money doing that. They'll take weekend courses, they'll follow a doctor for a few days and then there's kind of an old saying in surgery, see one, do one, teach one. Well, there you go, they see one and then they decide that they can try to do it and this can be very, very dangerous. The second thing is fame. This is something we've seen more with the advent of social media where there are some doctors who are motivated by fame and they want to be famous and they look and say, well, who are the famous people out there? Oh, to be famous, I need to be out there. I need to be extreme. I need to try to get attention and what do you do to get attention? You do crazy stuff. Well, there you go. They operate on people who maybe don't need it. They operate on celebrities that may have some psychological underlying issues basically as a way to get their face out there. Well, and I don't know all the laws on this but isn't it illegal for an ER doctor to masquerade as a plastic surgeon? No, no. There is no law against, there's no law that prohibits any doctor from performing any procedure on a patient as long as they sign on the dotted line. So as a board certified plastic surgeon, if I were to say, hey, Michelle, you're pregnant, not that you are, but I'd say, hey, you're pregnant and I wanna perform your C-section. Now, I haven't seen a C-section since I was in my third year of medical school but if I convinced you that, hey, I'm the guy to perform your C-section, just pay me $5,000 cash beforehand and we'll do it in my office and oh, my office is great, you're gonna love it and you do that and I perform the operation, there's no law against me doing that. Now, if I budget, you could potentially sue me, okay? But in some states, it's hard to sue doctors because you really have to have evidence of true malpractice. And so it can be a very difficult situation. Wow, that's actually really enlightening. I did not know that like a dentist can perform a nose job, essentially. They could. So there are scope of practice, okay? So like if you're a nurse, you can't perform a tummy tuck, like that's a scope of practice issue and that would be illegal. So there aren't illegal procedures being done in hotel rooms and stuff like that. But we're talking about real doctors performing real operations that they just don't have the experience to do. That is legal, okay? As long as the patient signs for it, there's nothing illegal about it. Well, people should know that. Thank you for enlightening us on that. And then I just wanted to know and when does a desire for plastic surgery cross the line from healthy to dangerous, such as developing body dysmorphia and how does it impact a person's mental health in your opinion? I think the first thing I look at is when we're performing a cosmetic procedure, are we truly helping somebody look quote unquote better or are we just making them look quote unquote different? Now, admittedly that can be a little bit of a gray area, okay? And there are some people who say, oh, I like how this person looked before surgery more than after. But I do think that there are certain things that are pretty standard, okay? And so for example, if you have somebody who has, like I mentioned earlier, had had three children, has skin overhanging from their tummy, they've got rashes underneath it, they want a tummy tuck. Most people would say, that's probably a fairly reasonable cosmetic surgery to perform. On the flip side, maybe you have somebody who has a full D cup chest and it's natural and this is the way they have developed and they want to have quadruple Ds and they come to see your fur implants because they want their breasts to look four times bigger. That even though it's a cosmetic operation, even though you're technically not doing anything illegal, I would say, we're not necessarily changing this person to make them look better. We're changing them to make them look just different and that's where we start, in my opinion, going off the rails. So admittedly, it's not a black and white issue for every single situation, but I do think that there are reasonable standards that most of us in society can kind of look at and say, yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable to me or that doesn't sound reasonable at all. And just a digression for us, like is the show botched actually accurate of like clients that you see or is that just like for TV? So, botched is very interesting because there are certain people on botched that are really out there, like there's a guy and I just made a video on it. We haven't aired it yet, but a guy who basically was transforming himself into an elf and he wants to have big elf ears and get his eyes changed color and that's something that is pretty out there. You don't see that commonly. What I do see commonly are people who have botched surgery that you try to fix up for them. They get surgery done in another country or they get it done by one of these kind of phony plastic surgeons and they've got major problems, tissue dies, they have horrible infections, stuff like that. That is very accurate. And actually the doctors on botched are very reasonable and I would say, and I've watched a lot of episodes of it because I do a lot of reaction to that on my channel, I would say probably I would agree with maybe 85 to 90% of what they recommend and do. And they try to promote like ethics in plastic surgery. I've noticed that. Yes, yeah. So I think that they're both really, really good plastic surgeons. I think they do great work. Every once in a while I have a technique where I differ of what I would specifically do, but that doesn't mean that I'm right there wrong. There's more than one way to perform plastic surgery. That's a good point. And then how do you think that social media such as TikTok and Instagram perpetuate a toxic unrealistic body image, which in turn causes people to turn to plastic surgery or become addicted? What happens? Yeah, I think that there's especially with the short form video nowadays, everybody wants to go viral. And how do you go viral? You show something extreme. Okay, and so that could be anything from somebody showing their extreme BBLs to doctors who are performing extreme operations or trying to make it look so fancy and fun. And oh, it's not even like surgery at all. This is like going to the spa and that's just BS. That's just not true. And so I think that when you have something where, you've got a 30 or 60 second video, it's hard to show everything that somebody goes through in that type of a short time. And on top of that, you have doctors who their ulterior motive is to get business. And so they're not going to talk about potential complications. They're not going to talk about implants that might make people sick. They're just going to talk about all the fantastic things that they're doing and oh, and you should come see me, here's my phone number. Exactly. Like what do you think of trends like the nose job check? What do you think of trends like that? Do you think that maybe it helps other people feel better about themselves when they get a nose job? Or do you think that it makes people just want to get a nose job and they get addicted to it? No, I think that there's a lot of good things that come about. I think in general, communication, just as in life, I think more communication is always better. And so just as a general idea, I think the more that we put it out there and the more we share our honest stories, the better it is. I like to see videos, not that I would ever want somebody to have a complication, but I love it when somebody does share where they had surgery and maybe they weren't happy with it or their bad experience by going overseas or whatever. I think those are great as long as they're honest. I think that where we go wrong is when people try to gloss over things and it's being dishonest and the viewers don't realize that this is a sanitized version or something that's essentially just a big commercial. Exactly. And I mean, do you think that, in your opinion, what kind of crosses the line from addiction to just it being a normal procedure? Is it one surgery, is it two, is it 10? Yeah, I don't think there's really a number that is gonna be a black and white. I think once again, you go back to that thing I said earlier is if you're changing yourself to look, quote unquote, better, and as society, we look at that and go, yeah, he or she does look better. They look better. Then that's one thing versus, oh, that person looks different, okay? And so it's like if you have a nose job and you have somebody and they've got a big bump on their nose, okay? That person can be beautiful with the bump or without the bump, but we can look at it and say, hey, that person wants to take the bump off, they feel like it draws attention to their face and if they have the bump removed, their facial harmony may look different and they are looking forward to that. Okay, that's reasonable. But if they've had three nose jobs and it's just not narrow enough for them and they want to look more narrow, and they want to look like Janet Jackson's nose or something like that, now we start getting into that issue with dysmorphia and geez, I feel like we're doing too much. But admittedly, there is a bit of a gray area there and there are even celebrities that we may look at and go, geez, I don't know, did that person go too far? We know those people who definitely went too far and we know the people who didn't go too far, but there are those that are kind of gray areas too. Okay, so thank you for that. And I just want to move to the audience questions segment. So I'm very excited for this. First one, we'll start with a lighthearted one. We've got Anthony, are you single? No, I'm married. I've been married over 20 years. She's a pediatrician, right? Yes, she is. Amazing, that's amazing. Okay, and then next. So someone asked, what is harder, dental or medical school? So I can't say anything about dental school because I haven't been to it. Honestly, I would think dental school in some ways would be harder because I can't imagine looking at a people's mouths that much. And for me, like the one thing that really bothers me are bad smells. And I can't imagine some of people's breasts that you have to deal with as a dentist. That being said, medical school is very difficult. And really essentially, if you go straight through from high school to college to medical school, you are essentially giving up your 20s. It is a lot of hard work. It's stressful. It's worthwhile if you want to be a physician, but you have to work so hard to get to that end level. It used to be back 30, 40 years ago that people became doctors because they thought it was their best way to make money. It is not that way anymore, okay? Really, if you want to be a physician, you want to do it because you want to help people, you love medicine, that's the reason to do it because it is a long, hard road. How many hours do we do think you studied as a medical student just as a digression for a second? So my average day in medical school, honestly, would be for some of the harder times, you would get up at, let's say, 6.30. You would have class from, let's say, 7 to noon. And then we would take an hour break for lunch. We'd study from, let's say, 1 to 4. Take an hour break from 4 to 5. Study another hour or two. Take an hour for dinner and then study a few more hours that evening and then maybe watch an hour of TV. Okay, wow, that's intense. It's a lot of studying. Now, admittedly, I'm one that I needed to study. I know there's some people who they read it once and they remember it forever. I'm not that type of person. I did very well in medical school, but I wasn't at the top of my class because I don't have that photographic memory. So everybody's kind of different in how they deal with it, but it is a lot of work. Just to shout out one of our hosts, Monica. She's actually in medical school right now. Yeah, and she's super smart, but I just wanted to put that out there. And then a question from Joel. Hello, sorry I'm late. What's the most important part of inter-beauty? I say the most important part of inter-beauty is how you see yourself because really there are so many outside factors that can affect how you see yourself and people can tell you this and tell you that, but in the end, it really comes down to loving yourself worse and all, okay? And I think what bothers me the most is that I have patients who come to see me and they say, well, so-and-so said I should do this. My husband said I needed tummy tuck. My best friend said, oh, you should get a nose job. Or I was dating somebody and he broke up with me because he thought that my breasts were too small. I get so upset by that because really I think in the end it's so hard, I think in our society, feel good about yourself when you have pictures of Kardashians and Taylor Swift and people who are just these impossibly attractive people that are all over your social media feeds and all that, that it's hard to feel good about yourself in some ways. And for that reason, I really like certain celebrities like let's say Lizzo who promotes body positivity because I think there's beauty in all of us. And I think that I feel so bad when there are people who don't feel that there is any beauty to them at all. So I think that's the most important thing that you always wanna start by loving yourself and don't let anybody prevent you from loving yourself. And we all have parts of us that we may not like. I have a gummy smile that I don't like. I'd love to have bigger biceps, but at the same time, nobody's perfect. And really I think the most important thing is to start by loving yourself. Exactly, and even celebrities struggle with body image. So we're all, we all struggle with it. And what you see on TV, what you see in social media, what you see on magazine covers, all that's fake. It's all fake, it's all filters, it's all airbrushing. It's professional makeup artists. I've seen celebrities up close and personal where you look at them on TV and you go, wow, they look so great. And I look at them like, and I'm three feet away, I go, oh my gosh, they have so many more wrinkles than I ever thought they did. There's so much smoke and mirrors out there. Absolutely, and you don't really know them, right? You're just seeing what, they're on TV, they're on the movie screen, but you're not seeing them like this, right? Yeah, and the fact is is that so many people out there, whether they're influencers or they're actors or actresses, their job a lot of times is to look good. They've got dietitians, makeup artists, personal trainers, physical therapists. They have so many people that are helping them to look really good. If we had that type of resources, we would all look like them as well. So don't bring yourself up. Absolutely, and so Alaska Barry asks, how do you know if a plastic surgeon can be trusted or is legitimate? Unfortunately, there's not just one thing that you can do, but there's a number of things you wanted to do. The first thing is you wanna make sure that the person's a real plastic surgeon. So make sure that they're a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Something like 98% of real plastic surgeons are members of ASPS, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. They're all board certified. So if they're a member of that society, you know they're board certified, but that's not enough because there are members of ASPS that are not good doctors. So once you meet with that doctor and see how that doctor treats you, the time the doctor spends in consultation with you will be directly proportional and will be indicative of the time they spend with your operation and how they treat you during your operation. If they're really hurried, if you're not worth their time that they spent three minutes with you or they have their assistants talk with you and they barely spend any time with you, you know they're gonna treat you like that in surgery too and that may not be how you wanna be treated in the operating room. So really get an idea and then see more than one doctor. Make sure that if you do decide on somebody that you are 100% certain that you've got a connection there and that makes a lot of sense to you. Absolutely. And then someone asks, why do people who have gone undergone plastic surgery sometimes deny that they've gone through surgery especially like celebrities? There's a stigma to plastic surgery. It's not nearly like it used to be. And I really do credit the Kardashians as paying some of the people who've really brought plastic surgery to the forefront even though they haven't admitted to all the stuff that they've done. Chloe, excuse me. They haven't brought it out there. They've revealed that they've had procedures done. And I think that's really, really important. But still there's a stigma and a lot of people want to hide the fact that they've had something done because they want to be praised sometimes for looking as great as they do because they apply olive oil to their skin or some BS like that. Absolutely. And Lulu asks, can someone develop a mental health disorder after plastic surgery when they've never had a history or issues before? That's a good question. I honestly don't know the answer to that. I suppose that that's possible because sometimes mental issues will be triggered by different life events. So I suppose that that's possible, but as not being a true psychiatrist, I can't answer that 100% for you. Thank you for that. And then Aries asked a very, very good question. I think her name's pronounced Aries. Do you think it should be mandatory to redirect a patient to a psychologist before they get any kind of plastic surgery? I don't think that that's reasonable. I feel like with as much work is going on right now, I mean, and really there's so many mental health issues out there that if you have somebody who really is well-adjusted and they have a true issue, I think that it would really overwhelm mental health, the mental health practitioners out there if we did something like that. Sometimes, I mean, some people really need it. In those situations, a doctor should definitely refer to it. But otherwise, I think there's so many other people that need help to kind of clog those alleys with people who may not need it, just to try to screen them is probably unnecessary. Absolutely. And then we've got another question by Mia. Who diagnosed his body dysmorphia? Typically done by either a plastic surgeon or by a family doctor or a psychiatrist. Best way to think about that, and if you're wondering like, geez, do I have body dysmorphia? Really the way to think about it is it's an issue with your physical appearance that is out of proportion to really reality. So if you say, hey, I hate my nose, I've got this bump on my nose and all of your friends and your parents and everybody else says I can barely see that bump at all, yet you think that bump is a size of Mount Rushmore, then that may be a sign of dysmorphia. If you are so focused on the cosmetic part of your body and other people don't see why you should be so focused on it, then that may be a sign of dysmorphia. Now, there are people who do have real issues. There are people who let's say, we're born with a cleft lip and they've got scarring from their cleft lip and they're really sensitive about it and they focus on that. And when they look in the mirror, that's all they see. I wouldn't consider that dysmorphia because there's a reason why and it's understandable, but it's when it's not understandable and other people don't get why this is such a focus, that could be a potential sign of dysmorphia. And then Mia asks, is there any mental health assessment done by plastic surgeons and consultations? Is that normal or? There's not anything that we have that's standardized like a checklist form or anything like that. But as plastic surgeons, when we do our education, there are lectures that we go to that will often say, hey, these are some of the red flags to look for if you're performing surgery of this person may not be a good candidate. And the number one red flag usually is expectations that are unrealistic. Whether that's, they think that the results are gonna be perfect or maybe they think having plastic surgery is gonna change their life to the point where they are very unhappy, but now they will be happy. There's a lot of different things, but really it's unrealistic expectations are always the number one thing. Absolutely. And then dark Phoenix asked, what are the pros and cons of normalizing plastic surgery? I think the pros of normalizing plastic surgery is that it's being performed anyway and to kind of keep it hidden can bring shame to people who really don't deserve that. I think there are a lot of positive things that can happen from plastic surgery with improving people's quality of lives. But the negative part of it is that we never want to encourage people to go under the knife. This is something that once again should always be considered as a last resort. And that's one thing I always share in my videos. If you watch my videos, you see that's one of the things I always say is eat real food, use clean skin care, and consider plastic surgery as a last resort. And normalizing it, once again, more communication is always good, but we don't wanna make it so normal that people think, oh, it's no big deal, I'm just gonna go get breast implants or I'm gonna go get some lipo, no big deal. Well, it is a big deal. Mm-hmm. And then Viren's asked, can plastic surgeons refuse to give plastic surgery? I think you mentioned this, but... I turned down maybe one out of every five or six people that come to see me for various reasons, whether it's unrealistic expectations, I'm concerned about dysmorphia, or maybe sometimes I just don't feel if the operation makes a lot of sense for them, then I will say no. And then Pat asked, or is it cat? Yes, Kat asked, how can we change the way we look at ourselves? I think this really starts from inside yourself. And really, I'm a big fan of therapy, and I think therapy to really get to the root cause of why, let's say you have self-esteem issues or self-image issues, that's always the first place to start. It's not to start getting Botox. And so really, I think seeking therapy, even just talking to a friend about it and somebody who's trusted is always, then those are good places to start. There's no magic bullet to this. There's no key to this. It really is gonna be just dealing, I think, with your history, with how you grew up, how you've always felt about yourself and these issues and how all of it potentially intertwines. So someone asked this question, I'll just rephrase it. How can one stop thinking about one specific body part as unattractive over and over again? How can they maybe stop those thoughts? I think that's something that really, if you do have obsessive thoughts about something like this, you really need to seek therapy first because there could be an underlying reason why this is something that you focus on. Is it something that somebody said to you when you were younger? Is it something that maybe your parents kept bringing up with you or siblings or something? There are typically underlying reasons why you feel this way. I mean, unless you have a true body disfigurement, there are reasons to think that way and trying to get to that root cause of where this is coming from, I think is the most important thing and seeking therapy, I think is the best way to start. Absolutely, so essentially assessing where it's stemming from. Exactly. As I get older, you realize that so much of our insecurities come from childhood and sometimes things that we may not even remember offhand, but we've kept with us through the years. As a parent myself of two high school kids, I always think about like, geez, like have I done anything over the last 16, 18 years that is gonna cause something like that to them. As parents were not perfect. And so for you being somebody, think about that and always consider therapy because it can only help. And I think that's important because sometimes when people are obsessing over a specific body part, they automatically assume that it is unattractive and it's like, well, that's not necessarily true. Other people might find it beautiful, like it's not necessarily unattractive. And so we're gonna take- Where is that coming from? Yeah, right? And this is our last question from James. So plastic surgery, which would be a practical reason to get plastic surgery. Practical reason is if you do have a cosmetic concern about your face or your body that you feel can be improved with plastic surgery, you have the means to do it, you feel it's worth the potential risks, then definitely I think it's worthwhile to consult with somebody. But first you wanna talk with yourself, have a very honest discussion with yourself. Can you be happy, completely happy in your life without doing this procedure? And if the answer is yes, then maybe you shouldn't do it. Other times, people look at it and maybe the risks of the operation aren't that high and maybe worth taking it on. Every procedure is different. And so seeking a good doctor that you trust as well as talking to your family, your friends about it, those are important things. So you don't just do this on your own and make sure that if you do talk to a doctor, make sure that that doctor has your best interests in mind, isn't just trying to make money off of you. Absolutely, well, thank you so much for being here, being here today, doctor, you and this information is so valuable to our viewers. And again, thank you for the amazing work you do. Have a great day, everyone. Until next time. Thank you.