Best Facelift: Deep Plane vs. SMAS
No two faces are the same, so no two face lifts should be the same. Each procedure should be carefully customized to individual facial features.
Face lifts have come a long way. In the beginning, doctors simply tightened the skin. In the 1970s, they discovered that lifting and repositioning the deeper layers of muscle and connective tissue, called the SMAS, gave much better, longer-lasting results.
In the 1990s, Dr. Sam Hamra popularized an alternative approach called the deep plane face lift. This approach treats the skin and deeper layers together.
Find out which technique Dr. Bass prefers and why, the history of face lifts, and how to find the best facelift surgeon for you.
Learn more about Dr. Bass’ approach to facelift surgery, the Multiplanar SMAS Approach
About Dr. Lawrence Bass
Innovator. Industry veteran. In-demand Park Avenue board certified plastic surgeon, Dr. Lawrence Bass is a true master of his craft, not only in the OR but as an industry pioneer in the development and evaluation of new aesthetic technologies. With locations in both Manhattan (on Park Avenue between 62nd and 63rd Streets) and in Great Neck, Long Island, Dr. Bass has earned his reputation as the plastic surgeon for the most discerning patients in NYC and beyond.
To learn more, visit the Bass Plastic Surgery website or follow the team on Instagram @drbassnyc
Subscribe to the Park Avenue Plastic Surgery Class newsletter to be notified of new episodes & receive exclusive invitations, offers, and information from Dr. Bass.
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Welcome to Park Avenue
Plastic Surgery Class,
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the podcast where we explore controversies
and breaking issues in plastic
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surgery. I'm your co-host, Doreen Wu,
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a clinical assistant at Bass
Plastic Surgery in New York City.
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I'm excited to be here with Dr. Lawrence
Bass, Park Avenue plastic surgeon,
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educator, and technology innovator.
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The title of today's episode is
"Best Facelift: Deep Plane vs. SMAS."
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Dr. Bass.
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Everyone wants to look their best and
if they're going through a facelift,
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they want to get the best possible result.
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Most people do a lot of research to pick
the best facelift surgeons who use the
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most advanced techniques.
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I agree.
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Most patients have a few consultations
and do a lot of due diligence before
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going ahead with a facelift.
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So what are the basic techniques that
patients are choosing from these days?
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The big split is deep plane and SMAS
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facelifting.
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That's the big divide currently
in the techniques being used.
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Give us the rundown. What is the history
of how we got to these two techniques?
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Facelift, which is over
a hundred years old,
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started as skin only facelifts.
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And back in the 1960s,
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facelifts were still skin only facelifts.
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A little more dissection
was done over a larger area,
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but just a space being
opened up between the skin
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and the deeper tissues so that
the skin could be tailored flat.
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Starting in the 1970s,
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dissection deep to the skin
started to be done as part of the
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facelift, and this was SMAS lifting.
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And SMAS stands for
subcutaneous musculoaponeurotic
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system.
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So it's basically the muscle
and connective tissues in layers
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that are under the skin and
under the subcutaneous fat that's
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just under the skin.
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And people started
modifying these tissues,
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pulling on them, releasing
them, and repositioning them,
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doing a variety of different things
in order to get a more complete
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correction and a more durable correction.
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And that worked out in large
measure. And by the 1980s, many,
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many surgeons, not all but many,
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were performing SMAS facelifts for
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most of their facelift.
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In the 1990s, the Deep
Plane Facelift was born,
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and this was developed
by a man named Sam Hamra,
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who we've talked about
before on the podcast.
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And he was a plastic surgeon who
trained at NYU at the Institute of
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Reconstructive Plastic
Surgery, where I trained,
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although he trained
some time before I did,
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and was practicing down in Dallas.
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And there was a lot of attention
in the 1990s on ways to boost the
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cheek and get a more
complete correction of the
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nasolabial fold that fold between
the cheek and the upper lip.
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People were trying to get that
as flattened out as they could,
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and so Dr. Hamra thought
and really deep plane is
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composite face lifting,
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if you lift the SMAS and
the skin as one unit,
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a composite together,
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he was hoping to get a more
complete draping of that
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midface area, and that's what the
deep plane facelift was really about.
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Now, since that time,
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there was a lot of study of the deep
plane and the deep plane has evolved
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in some ways to reduce some of
the nerve injury risk and some of
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the swelling and recovery time.
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But some people favor lifting
as a unit and some people
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favor lifting skin and SMAS separately.
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Now that we know the history behind
the SMAS and deep plane approaches,
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I'm curious what is the
intent of these techniques?
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So the intent is always to get
the most youthful appearance
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possible,
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the greatest correction
of all of the features.
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But as I said,
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deep plane was really
focused on midface correction
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and the advantage of maybe getting that
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more completely corrected where SMAS
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techniques were developed
both for midface and the
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neck.
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And there have been some more recent
developments in what's called deep plane
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neck work, although that's really part
and parcel of what's been done with SMAS
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techniques over time.
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So the intent is to get those areas
corrected the best way they can.
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What do you do in your facelifts Dr.
Bass and why do you take that approach?
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So I was very well trained
because Dr. Hamra trained at
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NYU, he would come up every year and
lecture and demonstrate with live
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surgery. And so I'm trained in deep plane
techniques as well as SMAS techniques,
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but most of the time I
do a SMAS technique in my
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facelift, and it's what I think of as a
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multiplanar SMAS. In other words,
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we're lifting the face in
multiple planes, the skin,
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the connective tissue in the cheek area,
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the connective tissue in the jowl
area, the superficial muscle,
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the platysma muscle, which is
part of the SMAS in the neck.
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And each of those components
can be both positioned and
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shaped individually.
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And I kind of feel that
that gives more flexibility,
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and we know as the face ages that
different parts of the face shrink and
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descend differently from each other.
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So I feel that that better
allows correction of
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what needs to be done in each
individual's zone rather than
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being compelled to move everything as a
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monounit or composite.
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Can you talk about some of your unique
modifications to the technique and why
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you choose to do them?
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So one,
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change in the face as we
age is a loss of projection
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where shrinking,
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losing bone muscle and fat volume
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and skin and connective tissue is sagging.
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So that tends to flatten the face and the
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classic skin pulling techniques and
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pull in more of a backward
direction tends to accent that
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flattening effect.
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So modern facelifts tend to involve
a more vertical component of
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lift, at least at the skin
level. But in addition to that,
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rather than pulling tissues
in a straight line direction,
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I like to rotate the tissues
into position because that allows
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greater flattening in areas that
you wanted like the gel area
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while accenting the projection
in areas that you want and have
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lost projection with
aging like the cheek area,
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which flattens out over time,
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rotating that into position
helps shape the face,
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accent the projection and
restore youthful shape.
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No two patients faces are the same,
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which in turn means no two
facelifts are the same.
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What kinds of variations are
made for individual patients?
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That's a great question and
really a critical issue.
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You said it exactly right.
No two faces are the same,
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and no two facelifts
should be exactly the same.
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Your facelift needs to be customized
to your individual facial features.
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So this involves a lot of considerations.
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So for example,
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sometimes we're fat grafting
along with lifting and
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tailoring the skin.
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Sometimes we're doing very
conservative fat removal. For example,
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in the gel area where there's an
excess of fat and we want a very
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modest removal,
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sometimes we add a chin
implant to alter the angle of
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draping and get better
leverage on the re draping.
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We also should shape
the cheek as part of the
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facelift that again, typically
flattens and loses projection.
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But how we're going to shape that
cheek depends on what you look like in
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youth, what gender you are,
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men's cheeks and women's
cheeks look differently,
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what your ethnicity is and
your basic facial shape.
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So that's all going to vary
what you're going to try to
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produce. In the neck area,
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there's a lot of variation in
what you do to tailor the muscle
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layer in the neck based on what's
giving you a good response,
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what that person's neck anatomy is,
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their bone anatomy and looking at their
muscle dynamics when they animate,
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that's all going to affect what
techniques you choose to employ in that
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individual facelift.
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Let's look ahead at
what's to come. Tell us,
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what is happening at the forefront
of facelift surgery today?
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So facelift surgery continues to evolve,
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and if we look at facelift
surgery from decades ago to
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today, it hasn't really
undergone revolutionary changes,
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but it's undergone literally
decades of evolutionary
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changes and these changes continue today.
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So people are working on further incision
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reduction, so the incisions are shorter,
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they're shorter now than
they were in the 1980s,
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but they're looking at other
ways to further reduce incisions.
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People are looking at ways of
limiting dissection to more focused
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areas rather than a
broad-based dissection,
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and they're looking at improved correction
in the neck with advanced muscle
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division techniques and
muscle repair techniques.
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And there's also a lot of examination
of ways to minimize recovery time,
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for example,
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looking at ways to
minimize bruising with the
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procedure so that recovery
time is shortened.
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Lastly, Dr. Bass,
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can you give our listeners some
parting takeaways from this episode?
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Well, we said in the title,
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best facelift is a deep plane or SMAS,
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but both approaches can achieve
excellent results in experienced
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hands. There is no best in that regard.
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Each surgeon has refined what
they do to get excellent results,
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and an experienced surgeon
who has refined his or her
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technique and customizes
it for each individual
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patient,
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that's more important to a great
result than the textbook application of
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technique X or technique Y.
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So overall, you need an experienced
surgeon who carefully assesses your needs,
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who plans with your concerns in
mind and customizes the plan for
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your features. Not a
cookie cutter facelift,
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but a custom facelift. Of course,
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surgeons need to be meticulous and you'd
like to find a surgeon you're a good
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fit with, that you feel
comfortable working with.
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Finally,
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the really important area
in face lifting is getting a
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sharp defined jawline.
That's a very
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strong feature on a man's face.
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It's a very graceful
feature on women's faces and
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getting a clean and not saggy neck
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and the excellence and completeness of
the result in the neck is really where
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the money is in facelift in
terms of making you look younger
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because sagging or hanging
skin in the neck is an
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obvious feature of age and not
just a decade or two into age,
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but several decades into aging.
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And so cleaning that area
up, which I believe is
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the focus of SMAS techniques
and the ability to do that
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zonally and multiplanar,
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is really what the excellent
facelift is all about.
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Thank you,
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Dr. Bass for sharing your insight and
expertise with us about techniques in
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modern facelift surgery.
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Thank you for listening to the Park
Avenue Plastic Surgery Class podcast.
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Follow us on Apple
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