Surgeon Diana Ponsky: Overcoming Labels and Achieving Success with Linda Kreter

Dr. Ponsky's family left Vietnam as refugees due to war, traveled by boat to Indonesian islands, and came to the United States with help from Catholic agencies, settling in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

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

Dr. Ponsky initially wanted to do pediatrics in medical school but changed direction after working two years at the VA treating veterans with head and neck cancer and broken noses.

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

Once a child is labeled as shy, they may believe they will be shy forever because of that label.

If you don't ask, the answer is always no, so you must try even when initial prospects seem unfavorable.

Domestic abuse victims show similar psychological patterns to war veterans in not wanting to be reminded of periods when they were suffering, though the scale differs.

Plastic surgery for trauma victims represents restoration of what they used to have and remember themselves to be.

Invisible injuries like concussive injuries and PTSD are often more impactful than visible injuries but don't show unless specifically questioned or elicited from patients.

Some plastic surgery patients are looking to satisfy self-esteem or confidence issues, which is tougher to address because they may be seeking unachievable perfection.

Patients seeking to restore their outside appearance to match how they feel inside is more achievable because people are feeling healthier and living longer.

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

Social media has made people seek perfection portrayed by influencers, half of which are not necessarily real or truthful.

Working remotely has caused people to want more plastic surgery because they use filtered images online and want to match those filtered appearances when returning to in-person interactions.

Plastic surgery patients are presenting earlier for two reasons: increased awareness of skincare among millennials and teens spreading to whole households, and rapid facial aging from Ozempic weight loss.

As people lose weight rapidly on Ozempic, they see aging effects most prominently 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.

Realistic surgical outcomes depend on individual anatomy—what bones, cartilage, and skin type a patient has—rather than being able to design any desired appearance.