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Botox after breakfast? Hotel offers cosmetic procedures

By Harriet Baskas, NBC News contributor

Guests at an upscale hotel in downtown Austin, Texas, can now check out with a face that’s less saggy, splotched and wrinkled.

On Monday, a dermatology and cosmetic surgery practice with several branches outside the city will open one in town, on the main floor of the Four Seasons Residences Austin, which is on the same property as the Four Seasons Hotel Austin.

“It’s a major convenience,” said Lorley Musiol, director of the Four Seasons Residences Austin. “It’s rare to find a plastic surgeon in a downtown market. so this should appeal to hotel guests such as women whose husbands are here for a meeting and to people who work and live in the city.”

Westlake Dermatology & Cosmetic Surgery will offer cosmetic procedures such as Botox, chemical peels and, starting next year, breast augmentation, liposuction and other services. “It’s an ideal location in the central business district that provides easy access for downtown professionals, as well as the many residents of the rapidly expanding condominium developments of Austin,” said founder Gregory Nikolaidis. He notes that patients may also be hotel guests attending events at the Austin Convention Center across the street.

Having a cosmetic surgery practice near the coffee shop and other retail outlets on the main floor of a hotel property may be new, but it’s not unusual for hotels and cosmetic surgeons to work together to offer resort discounts to guests.

“It’s a trend that began in the 1970s,” said Bjorn Hanson, divisional dean of New York University’s Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management. “Luxury and upper upscale hotels began marketing to patients and creating relationships with hospitals and cosmetic surgery practices, so patients could have privacy during the initial recovery following surgery.”

This type of guest is appealing because they generally stay longer and make use of extras, such as room-service meals, dry cleaning, laundry and other hotel services. “so it makes perfect sense to pursue this market segment and offer additional features and ‘amenities’ such as onsite surgery to help differentiate the hotel,” said Katie Davin, director of hospitality education at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I.

“Botox and Brunch” packages may not pop up on the Four Seasons’ website, but Musiol said the Four Seasons Residences Austin is looking at creating some discounts and promotions that involve services offered by the cosmetic surgery clinic. “It’s a new market and it’s changing the way we do business,” said Musiol. “We’re both on the same Facebook page, and I see they’re already tweeting free frown line Botox for the first 100 customers.”

Find more by Harriet Baskas on StuckatTheAirport.com and follow her on Twitter.

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Botox after breakfast? Hotel offers cosmetic procedures

Make Me Over: ‘Fat Banking’ preserves your own fat for later use

TUCSON – in today’s “Make Me Over” segment we’re talking about “fat banking, a way to “save” fat taken from one area of the body and use it in another area, instead of using a synthetic filler.

Dr. Gwen Maxwell, our plastic surgery contributor, stopped by to discuss this method.

Here is information from Dr. Maxwell’s discussion with Allison:

A new kind of service called ‘Fat Banking’ is allowing surgeons to harvest adult adipose tissue and stem cells, and then save this tissue for their patients. Normally, after liposuction, the fat that is removed from the body is discarded as medical waste. this valuable tissue has been called ‘liquid gold’ by some for its ability to naturally restore lost volume in the face, hands, and body and its high stem cell content. Now, with cryopreservation tissue storage options being more accessible to the general public, patients have the option to have their fat preserved for future usage in aesthetic or medical procedures.

Fat Banking:• Cryopreservation of human cells and tissues has been in use for years.• there are several companies in the market that offer fat and stem cell banking. recently a company based here in Tucson, AdiCyte, headed by Dr. David Harris, Professor of Immunology at the University of Arizona, has begun to offer these services.• the fat itself needs to be collected by a qualified surgeon.• the fat is collected during a liposuction procedure and cryogenically (by freezing) stored at a tissue bank for future usage.• Laser liposuction patients cannot have their fat saved.• the fat may be retrieved at a later date to be used instead of synthetic filler in the face, lips, hands, and breasts.• Fat is rich in regenerative stem cells, which potentially may be used in future medical procedures.• in the future, the fat may be used for medical therapy as the science of stem cell therapy makes new discoveries.

Procedures where Stored Fat may be used:• Facial Rejuvenation• Breast Augmentation with or without implants• Buttock Augmentation• Breast Reconstruction• Trauma or wound care• Stem Cell Therapy

The adipose tissue (fat) collection process:During a procedure such as liposuction, abdominoplasty, or breast reduction, the surgeon uses a sterile collection kit, which is provided by the tissue storage bank. the fat is sent to the tissue bank where it is purified, processed, and cryogenically stored for future usage. when needed, the tissue bank will provide the patients their adipose cells within a few days. Typically, about 90-92% of the fat is viable for future usage.

Price Range of Fat Storage: $900 – $1000 for initial collection, approximately $100 per year storage fee, and a fee for retrieval from the fat bank which varies from company to company.

Make Me Over: ‘Fat Banking’ preserves your own fat for later use

Preparing for cosmetic plastic surgery « Orchestra Conductors

Choice to go with plastic surgical procedure is certainly one that should not be taken lightly. Often a successful procedure is about preparation. Physical changes to your body are never without the accompanyment of risks. through surgery, a lot of things can be accomplished. Make sure what you’re expecting is realistic. the general success of procedures is the biggest contributor to its popularity. Being healthy will make this burden a lot easier to bear. What are the most important considerations to look at? you will discover countless matters consistent with this source.not every person handles surgery the same way. Make sure you are up for it physically. Lack of physical health can lead to a lot of potential risks. you probably shouldn’t have surgery if your medical history is a serious concern.many people are also sensitive to anesthesia. take proper precautions with your safety. At the same time, not every procedure requires the use of anesthesia. For additional information have a look at beverly hills plastic surgeons.the information you get on the overall safety of a procedure should be up to date.If there are any other concerns, take them up with your potential surgeon at a time.Your body takes time to heal. As a result, there will be some recovery time that you must plan for. the extent of recovery varies with a type of surgery. the time it takes to recover from breast augmentation isn’t usually that long. For some reconstructive surgeries, the healing rates can be in the years. taking the time to adequately recover can help you see better results. During the recovery phase, make sure you are well hydrated.There’s a lot of variance in the amount of time required for a surgery. Contrary to popular belief, most surgeries require updating every few years. Botox injections usually require repeat applications. although lasting an extremely long time is possible with some procedures. in the end, you can be quite happy with the results of your surgery.

Preparing for cosmetic plastic surgery « Orchestra Conductors

Carmel Valley urologist helps save SeaWorld’s beloved matriarch, Dottie the dolphin

By Arthur LightbournContributor

A year ago last January, UCSD urologist Dr. Roger Sur received a phone call from SeaWorld.

“Are you kidding?” he said. “You want me to operate on a dolphin?”

They weren’t kidding.

Dottie, the 23-year-old Atlantic bottlenose dolphin star of SeaWorld San Diego, was dying.

The normally energetic, fun-loving matriarchal sea mammal wasn’t eating and wouldn’t even let her trainers touch her.

SeaWorld’s senior veterinarian Dr. Todd Schmitt immediately ordered a blood test and discovered that her blood was toxic and her kidneys were shutting down. Schmitt decided to reach out for help beyond the world of animal medicine to the human world by calling UCSD Medical Center specialists.

UCSD nephrologist Dr. David Ward was brought in and tried something never performed before on a dolphin — kidney dialysis to cleanse her blood,

The dialysis helped but wasn’t a long- term solution. An ultrasound revealed a kidney stone in Dottie’s left and right kidney. one of the stones passed naturally, but the other was stuck, and she was not able to urinate, a condition, which, if untreated, would be fatal.

That’s when Dr. Sur was called.

He specializes in minimally invasive, robot-assisted kidney-stone surgery.

Sur, 44, a former U.S. Navy physician, is assistant professor of surgery at UCSD’s department of urology and director of the UCSD Comprehensive Kidney Stone Center, the only institute of its kind in Southern California.

“Dottie had actually gone into cardiac arrest moments before I got there,” Sur recalled.

In his career, Sur had dissolved more than 1,000 kidney stones in human patients, all under anesthetic, but never on a 450-pound sea mammal that had to be hoisted out of her pool, placed on an operating table, and couldn’t be sedated because of her unstable condition.

“She was so out of it and near death, she couldn’t even fight,” he said.

Her trainers steadied her, stroked to comfort her and poured water over her while Sur operated.

He first attempted to insert a stent, a flexible, hollow, plastic tube, inside the estimated length of Dottie’s ureter, between the kidney and bladder, to temporarily ensure drainage of urine until the stone could be removed, but it was too short and got sucked up into the ureter.

“I lost the stent in a 450-pound dolphin,” he said. “Oh, my god.”

Dottie was returned to her back area pool.

Fortunately, the stent provided some relief for Dottie by providing a drainage channel bypassing the obstruction.

Sur returned the following day with a long narrow scope to reach directly up into Dottie’s bladder. the tiny scope located the obstructing stone, and Sur threaded a laser fiber up through the scope into the bladder, and laser-pulverized the stone.

Then, Sur took a grasper, sent it up through the scope and retrieved the original lost stent.

He had performed the world’s first endoscopic laser lithotripsy on a dolphin.

The procedure took about 20 minutes.

“It felt like 20 hours,” Sur said.

Dottie’s recovery took several months, but SeaWorld veterinarians report Dottie’s kidneys are functioning well and she has regained the 40 pounds she lost during her illness.

We interviewed Sur, 44, at his home in Carmel Valley’s Torrey Hills which he shares with his wife, Erin, and their two young children.

We caught him on his academic day off between an early morning surgery at UCSD’s hospital in Hillcrest and an interview with a fellowship candidate scheduled for later in the day.

Sur’s heritage is Korean on his father’s side and Chinese on his mother’s. At 5-foot-8 and a trim 160 pounds, he keeps in shape surfing and swimming.

He’s the kind of guy who greets his 7-year-old son with a feigned karate kick followed by a hug and a kiss.

Sur was born in Frankfurt, Germany, “actually in a taxi cab en route to the U.S. Army hospital in Frankfurt.” his electrical engineer father was a civilian contractor to the Army.

Sur was raised in New Jersey and Maryland.

He earned his B.S. degree in honors chemistry on a four-year Army ROTC scholarship program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and his medical degree in 1993 from Eastern Virginia Medical School on a four-year Navy Health Professions Scholarship.

As a result, he had no debt coming out of medical school, “but in return I did serve 15 years of active duty,” he said. He is currently a commander in the U.S. Navy Reserves.

He went on to complete his surgery internship and urology residency at the Naval Medical Center San Diego, followed by a fellowship in endourology (treating urological diseases with scopes)/laparoscopy (robot-assisted surgery) at Duke University Medical Center, 2004-2006.

At Duke, he studied under Dr. Glenn Preminger, renowned for his medical and surgical management of kidney-stone and other urological diseases.

“If you have a kidney stone,” Sur said, “your chance of recurrence is 50 percent over the next five to 10 years. so it’s almost guaranteed you’ll have another one unless you do something to prevent it.”

That’s why, he says, his continuing focus will be on the surgical treatment, medical prevention and research into the causes of kidney stones at UCSD’s Comprehensive Kidney Stone Center where he serves as founding director.

Name: Roger L. Sur, M.D.

Distinction: Board certified urologist Dr. Roger Sur is an assistant professor of surgery at UCSD’s Division of Urology and director of the UCSD Comprehensive Kidney Stone Center, the only institute of its kind in Southern California dedicated to patients suffering from kidney stones.

Resident of: Carmel Valley

Born: Frankfurt, Germany.

Education: B.S. in honors chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1988; M.D., Eastern Virginia Medical School, 1993; surgery internship, 1993-94, and urology residency, 1997-2002, Naval Medical Center San Diego; fellowship in endourology (treating urological diseases with scopes)/laparoscopy (robotics surgery), Duke University Medical Center, 2004-2006.

Family: He and his wife, Erin, have been married 10 years. They have two children: son, Jacob, 7; and daughter, Arden, 4 1/2.

Interests: Early-morning surfing and swimming

Favorite TV: Sports and “American Idol”

Favorite film: “Braveheart,” 1995 epic historical film starring Mel Gibson.

Favorite vacations: Costa Rica and Hawaii

Philosophy: “Strong believer in Christianity …. and that character is king. some say cash is king. not so, character trumps everything else.”

Short URL: http://www.delmartimes.net/?p=21726

Carmel Valley urologist helps save SeaWorld’s beloved matriarch, Dottie the dolphin