Surgeon Diana Ponsky: Wrong Labels and Winning Despite Them with Linda Kreter

Dr. Ponsky's family left Vietnam due to war, paying their way on a boat and traveling to Indonesian islands before coming to the United States with help from Catholic agencies.

The family settled in Allentown, Pennsylvania where Dr. Ponsky's parents worked at Dunkin' Donuts and restaurants.

Dr. Ponsky learned English primarily through reading after-school stories and Nancy Drew novels.

Dr. Ponsky initially wanted to do pediatrics in medical school but eventually chose plastic surgery after working two years at the VA.

At the VA, Dr. Ponsky treated veterans for head and neck cancer and broken noses, which led her to fall in love with the field of plastic surgery.

Thinking you can change things is more positive and actionable than adopting a victim mentality where you have no ability to affect outcomes.

Labels can become self-fulfilling: once you call a child shy, they think they're going to be shy forever.

The current generation is much more proactive about experiences and more accepting of differences in people.

Gender differences are more easily accepted now, and mixed-race children don't see color the way previous generations did in grade school.

Increased exposure through travel and awareness of global differences has made diversity more the norm.

The younger generation will look at something and if it says no, they won't even try, rather than asking and attempting.

Domestic abuse victims have similar psychological needs as war veterans, not wanting to be reminded of periods when they were suffering, though the scale is different.

Invisible injuries like concussive injuries and PTSD are often more impactful than visible injuries but don't show unless you specifically look for or question about them.

Some patients seek plastic surgery to satisfy self-esteem or confidence issues, looking for perfection which is often unachievable.

Patients seeking to restore their outside to match how they feel inside (because people are feeling healthier and living longer) have more achievable goals.

Patients who feel something is incongruent with their faces (like the nose) and have real reasons for it also have achievable goals.

Dr. Ponsky is not equipped to treat invisible motivations like perfection-seeking that would make patients into different people than what they are.

People see filtered images on social media and seek perfection portrayed by influencers, half of which are not real or truthful.

Remote work has increased demand for plastic surgery because people want their in-person appearance to match the filtered images they portray online.

Patients are seeking procedures earlier for two main reasons: increased awareness of skincare due to social media among millennials and teens spreading to whole households, and rapid aging effects from Ozempic weight loss.

Ozempic has brought rapid facial aging to the forefront; as people lose weight rapidly, they see it most in their faces, becoming more gaunt and hollow looking.

The stigma around cosmetic procedures is fading as society accepts that people do things to better themselves, including losing weight and dressing better.

Surgical results depend on what patients are made of—their existing bone structure, cartilage, and skin type—not on custom design like a car.