Dr. Shervin Naderi explains how rhinoplasty varies by ethnicity. Asian patients often have smaller nasal bones and flatter bridges; African American, Asian, and Latino patients typically have thicker skin and weaker cartilage. He uses computer imaging and careful grafting to preserve ethnic features while improving facial harmony.
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In any operation, it's important to know that your doctor is the best. Whether it's a matter of what's being done or if it's knowing the possible complications, you should know that your surgeon is ready for whatever happens. Dr. Shervin Nadiri is renowned in the greater Washington area, and he's here to talk about why ethnicity is something to consider before having rhinoplasty. Hello, Doctor.
Hi, Angela.
So you say you should consider your ethnicity before you consider having rhinoplasty.
Why the nose has to fit the face. And there's a lot of this terminology about ethnic rhinoplasty and Caucasianization. We talk about it when it comes to eyelids and talking about noses. Now, my specialty is noses, so we'll discuss the nose. There's been a lot of surgeons that have talked about maintaining ethnicity. Sometimes ethnic patients, whether they're Middle Eastern, African American, Asian, they come in and say, I don't want to lose that ethnicity. They don't have to worry about it. If the nose looks natural, if you can create a nose that looks natural, doesn't look fake, it fits their face, they will retain their ethnicity. The second part to consider is that not every ethnic patient from a certain ethnicity has the same exact nose. I mean, there are some typical generalizations that can be found. For example, a lot of Asians have smaller nasal bones, flatter bridges, the light kind of gets washed out across it, and they want to build it up. But I've done plenty of Asian rhinoplasties where they actually came in with a hump almost like a Middle Eastern nose. So you can't treat everybody the same way. Every nose is different. You got to examine each nose, do the computer imaging, show them what's realistic, and then if it fits their face, it's going to be a good job. Now, the goal of rhinoplasty always is to highlight the eyes and lips. You want to get the nose to go into the background. It sits in the middle of the face, but you want it to go into the background. So when somebody sees you, they don't even notice the nose. They notice the eyes, the eyebrows, the lips. That's the real goal of rhinoplasty. And an ethnic nose, a lot of times draws a little bit too much attention from itself.
I hadn't thought about it that way, but it's true. You don't want to notice someone's nose, first off.
I mean, even if it's too pretty, it's going to attract too much attention to itself, and it's going to distract from the eyes. So the nose has to be beautiful but natural. If a nose is too pinched, too pointy, too small, too upturned, all that stuff is going to draw too much attention to itself, right? So you don't want somebody, you don't want to stamp your signature on somebody's nose and say, oh, that's Dr. Nadei's rhinoplasty. I don't want anybody to tell that you've had a rhinoplasty. It can be completely natural. You could have been born with it. Now, again, with ethnicities, there are some generalizations. For example, when you look at a lot of African American patients and Asian patients and some Latino patients, you'll see that the cartilages of the nose are weaker and the skin is thicker. That combination creates a situation where if you remove more cartilage, you're actually going to make the nose worse. So if somebody comes in with a wider kind of a bulbous nose tip, in a typical Caucasian nose with thinner skin and stronger cartilages, what you do is you remove cartilage that creates more definition to the tip. But in an Asian, in a Latino, and an African American, that fits that generalization. If you remove cartilage, you actually create this potential space that fills with scar tissue and it just becomes a blob. That's not what you want to do. We're actually going to use suture techniques to bend the cartilage into the shape that you wanted, even add cartilage to it to be able to actually give more definition through the skin. Everything that we do is underneath the skin, but you want to see the definition through the skin. So that's all the stuff that has to be taken into account when talking about any patient, whether it's ethnic patients, Caucasian patients, or any race, age, sex, it has to just fit the face.
That's a great way to look at it. Now, when patients come to you, do they always say, okay, I want to first of all maintain my ethnicity, or do they just say, I just want my nose to be smaller?
You know, luckily in my practice in Virginia and in Chevy Chase, what I see is that people want natural looking noses. I do get, once in a while, somebody that says, listen, I want this to look like I've had a nose job. That's not my taste. I am surprised when I hear that, but it's just not my taste. There's plenty of surgeons that create those type of noses. Now, a nose that's beautiful and natural, they're not two different things. A nose, you can have been born with a beautiful nose. So I show them with computer imaging so they can rest at ease. And knowing that, listen, I'm gonna get a nice nose. It's not that it's natural, meaning I don't see a change. You don't go through the surgery, through the cost, through the recovery, and then see no change to the nose. That's not the goal. It'll be a beautiful nose, but it'll be a natural nose. And if it is natural, then it's going to retain your ethnicity and it's not going to change that. It's just going to be a more beautiful nose and highlight your eyes. Sounds good.
Sounds like you're the one to see if someone wants to get this done. Yeah. Thank you so much. We'll have more let's TALK LIVE coming up right after this.
