Tissue Augmentation in Clinical Practice PDF

Preface

In her great one woman show ‘‘The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe'' Lily Tomlin appears as a homeless person with a shopping cart holding a can of Campbell's soup asking the audience ‘‘is this soup or is this art—soup or art?''

As a freshman at Penn I remember the arrival of Andy Warhol, together with Edith Sedgwick, on campus. They had come to introduce his Pop Art. Joan Kron (now one of the editors of Allure) had staged the show and to me it was revolutionary. With his philosophy ‘‘Everything is beautiful, Pop is everything," Warhol took elements of everyday life and created art.

Later, during my undergraduate years, I would study in a tower that overlooked the Alfred Newton Richard's Medical Building designed by Louie Kahn. It was not a traditional structure but perched on cement columns hung like an alien spacecraft over the campus. Later I would get to know this mighty wizard of design. As I entered the great rotunda of Penn's School of Medicine the mighty image of the Agnew Clinic by Thomas Eakens cast its powerful gaze on me. Although medical school was not the best of times for me (I lost my Father and brother), I went to England after my third year to study drug abuse, but more importantly to see if there was a form of it where doctors were more interested in people than the disease. The singular ability of a gifted English dermatologist to diagnose a barbiturate overdose from patterns on the skin amazed me and changed my life forever. Dermatology and not psychiatry became my career goal. Yet as far apart as they seemed in those days, I now realize they are so very close together.

After an internship in Los Angeles I returned to Penn for residency. Walter B. Shelly and Albert Kligman both amazed me. It would be Kligman, the greatest mind in dermatology, who taught me to think and to read everything. Furthermore, he encouraged me not to be the best I can be, but better.

As the West beckoned, the intellectual freedom as well as the California light I had once experienced, lured me back to Los Angeles and I transferred residences to UCLA. Suddenly I found myself in a surgical subspeciality wherein they did everything but appendectomies. After I graduated as Chief Resident I opened a small 800 square foot office in Beverly Hills. Then came injectable collagen and my love affair with the syringe.

It was while making a film on collagen in the offices of the late great Stegman and Tromovitch where I met the quiet yet brilliant Richard Glogau. To this day Rick and I produce a nightly ‘‘mind meld'' on the phone. Also into my life came Frank Gehry, Ed Moses, Bob Graham, Ed Rusha, Ellsworth Kelly, and John Baldesarri who revolutionized my vision of art and architecture.

We are now in 2005. I finally realize that art and medicine are profoundly similar. My passion for both is in fact a singular emotion. It is now obvious that the best of each arises from human creativity. Medicine at its best is raised to an art form and aesthetic medicine is not just ok, but as Al Capone would say, ‘‘It is the ‘cherries.' '' Minimally invasive aesthetic enhancement defines my existence and I am honored to be part of this revolution. Life is not simple; I have survived the BOTOX^® lawsuit, my nurse's marriage, and all those who imitate me. Just remember that integrity and passion are the critical aspects of a physician, and never believe something simply because it has been written down by others.