Everything I write here comes directly from my experience in the operating room, in consultation, and with my patients through their recovery. Procedures, recovery, patient stories, and the questions I get asked most — written by me, for you.
When I trained as a plastic surgeon, drains were standard. Every tummy tuck patient left the operating room with one or two small tubes coming out of their abdomen, collecting fluid, requiring daily monitoring, and staying in place for days or sometimes weeks. Patients managed them at home. They logged fluid output. They waited for the numbers to drop low enough that I could safely remove them.
I get asked this question a lot. How does someone go from aerospace engineering at NASA to plastic surgery in Houston? The short answer is that it was a deliberate decision. The longer answer is that the two careers have more in common than most people expect.
Every week I sit across from patients in consultation who have done their research. They have read the procedure pages, watched the videos, and come in with good questions. But there is one conversation that almost never happens before surgery — and it is the one that matters most once they are actually recovering.
One of my patients, Myra Garcia, flew in from Puerto Rico to have an arm lift, a drainless tummy tuck, and a breast lift. At four months post-op, I sat down with her to talk about her experience — from the moment she found me on TikTok to the day she told me she would fly back twenty times if she had to.
Every week I hear from patients who are not from Houston. Some are from other parts of Texas. Many are from other states. Some fly in from Puerto Rico, Canada, and Latin America. They found my page on TikTok, watched my videos for months, sent a message, and eventually made the call.
I see it in consultation quite often. A patient comes in frustrated. She has been exercising consistently since her last pregnancy. Her eating habits are good. Her weight is close to where it was before she had children. But her abdomen still looks and feels different. There is a softness in the middle that will not go away. Sometimes a visible bulge when she sits up from lying down. Sometimes lower back pain that started after delivery and never fully resolved.
The most important conversation I have with patients happens during the consultation, before anything is scheduled. That conversation is about expectations. What a procedure can realistically achieve. What it cannot. And whether surgery is the right approach for what the patient is trying to solve.
If you have been researching for a while, a consultation is how we go from information to a plan. Come meet me. Bring every question you have. I will answer all of them.