Dr. Shervin Naderi, a facial plastic surgeon with 25 years of experience, argues that a surgeon's age matters less than their judgment and technique. Experience sharpens decision-making, but manual dexterity can decline in the mid-70s. Look for board certification, evolving methods, and a track record with procedures like deep-plane facelifts.
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What is the right age of your plastic surgeon? I mean, do you even think about that? You're out there on Google, ChatGPT, whatever, you're searching Instagram, you're looking at before and afters, you're looking at board certification, you're looking at reputation reviews, but do you even look at the age? What's the right age? Well, hear me out.
I'm Dr. Shervin Naderi, a double board-certified facial plastic surgeon who's been practicing in the Washington, D.C. greater metropolitan area for almost 25 years. When I moved here almost 25 years ago, there were 4 plastic surgeons in McLean, Virginia, for those of you who are familiar with that area. Today, there's 45. The area has grown. It's boomed. There are so many plastic surgeons now.
I can't keep up with them. But it made me think about my own career.
Kind of the gray hair made me reflect back to when I started. I finished my residency at one of the top residencies and one of the best fellowships in the country.
It's not just what they put on their website, it's their experience. We learn from bad experiences. It's not easy to learn from good experiences in any field. It's always the bad ones, the complications, the things that didn't turn out the way we thought they were going to turn out that makes us grow, makes us improve, makes us pivot, and makes us do things differently and better. So when you're looking for the plastic surgeon for your deep-plane facelift or rhinoplasty or brow lift or whatever, you have a lot of options today, more than you did 20 years ago. And it's not an easy decision, but you gotta weigh in all these facts. I look back and my techniques have dramatically changed. Every few years I update my techniques. My staff sometimes get frustrated even with my pre- and post-op instructions. They say, Why do you keep changing it? Because I keep evolving. I keep trying to improve, trying to get better and better results for my patients. Nothing should stay the same. But when I came out of residency and I thought I was the face guy, I had such an amazing training, residency, fellowship, the pedigree was strong and my focus was just on face.
So I worked.
Now that I look back, I didn't know what I didn't know. So the big question is, what is the right age for a plastic surgeon? When you're into practice 5, 10, 15, 20 years and more, you know so much more than you didn't know when you started. You may be fantastic 5 years out, but you'll be amazing 20 years out. You get to a point where your judgment's amazing, your knowledge is amazing, your decision-making is amazing, but once you get into your mid-70s, then your manual dexterity may not be there.
