We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lindsey Tavakolian. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lindsey below.

Lindsey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you get your first job in the field that you practice in today?

The road to become a plastic surgeon is long and includes 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and then the most important training of all is plastic surgery residency (for 6 years). The quality of your plastic surgery residency training really matters because it is during this time that you learn how to operate and you also learn how to practice safe medicine. I was fortunate to be accepted into and train at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas which was the number one plastic surgery training program in the nation. My path to choosing and being accepted into this program was interesting because it wasn’t in my master plan. I am from Atlanta and my mentor was the chief of plastic surgery at Emory University, a highly regarded program. I wanted to go to Emory for my plastic surgery training and follow in the footsteps and legacy of my mentor. I thought this was meant to be and it would allow me to live close to my family. During my fourth year of medical school I shadowed a plastic surgeon who began encouraging me to look into an internship opportunity at UT Southwestern where his son was in plastic surgery residency training. He told me the residency was the best and that even if I wanted to stay in Atlanta I should apply for a 4 week internship because it would be a great learning opportunity under “the best” in the nation. I took his advice and drove from Atlanta to Dallas where I spent 4 weeks interning with the residents, taking call with them, barely sleeping, and experiencing Dallas culture for the first time (it involved a lot of frozen margaritas and Tex-Mex). This internship experience rocked my world. I KNEW this program was the best, I wanted to be like the residents, I wanted to train under the surgeons that trained them, I was in awe of their skill-level, confidence, poise, and their autonomy in the operating room. I knew in my heart this was the place for me but this was a gut-wrenching realization. I was SO close with my family, my siblings, my nephews, and I had an enormous network of friends in Atlanta. I did not want to leave. I returned to Atlanta after my internship and I called my mentor Dr. Rod Hester (the previous chief of plastic surgery at Emory), and I said I need to talk. I drove out to Lake Oconee where he was living out his retirement years and we grabbed a burger. I told him my dilemma and asked him, where should I go? I thought he would say Emory of course. I thought he would sway me to pursue Emory because it was a fabulous program, it was in Atlanta, and it was in the footsteps of his legacy. After Dr. Hester listened to me recount my internship experience he looked at me and said “go to Dallas, you need to be in Dallas”. I knew in my heart this was the right answer but I didn’t expect him to support or encourage it. I told my family I would be ranking UT Southwestern first in the match process and it was one of the hardest conversations I have ever had. On Match Day – the day medical students find out where they will be going to residency I found out that Dallas had chosen me too. When I moved to Dallas I cried on my drive out from Atlanta for at least 3 hours without stopping. It wasn’t an easy decision but it was the right one. Now here I am over 6 years later and looking back I have full confidence that this is where I am supposed to be. I love my family and I miss them but I met my husband 30 days into residency and I’ve built a home here. The plastic surgeons that taught me their trade, that trusted me with their patients, that grew me as a doctor and a plastic surgeon are some of the best in the world. Dallas is special in the plastic surgery world because of it’s excellence in both reconstructive surgery but also aesthetics. There are some plastic surgery programs that have very little exposure to aesthetic surgery and I am fortunate that I trained under the surgeons that set the standard for aesthetic procedures and have advanced the field to where it is. I now have an enormous network of colleagues that are the best at what they do, and I am privileged to have learned their techniques that they spent 20+ years of practice refining. I am the surgeon that I am because of my training, because of my mentors at UT Southwestern and in the Dallas community.

Lindsey, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a plastic surgeon and I first became interested in medicine at the age of 11. My mom used to pay us to read as kids, one penny per page which basically bought us a candy bar per book. My mom gave my the book Gifted Hands by Dr. Ben Carson and it just lit something up in my heart. If you don’t know Ben Carson’s story you should forget he ever ran for president and just read his book because his story is incredible. He was raised by a single, illiterate mother and through the effort of his mom and his own hard work he excelled in school and eventually became the first neurosurgeon to separate conjoined twins at the brain. After that book I knew I wanted to be a surgeon, and I also was empowered by his story thinking “if he can do it with his obstacles, I can too”. Several years later I personally developed a need for a plastic surgeon and after several consults that didn’t work out I met my plastic surgeon, Dr. Rod Hester the chief of plastic surgery at Emory University. He was kind, warm, an excellent surgeon, a perfectionist, and his heart was enormous. He was so good to me and my family and my soul felt that burn again – I knew that I wanted to be a plastic surgeon. I wanted to do for other people what he had done for me. I thought, if I could change one person’s life for the better with surgery, an entire career in surgery would be worth that one change. As I navigated the next decade of my life this passion eventually led me to medical school but prior to that I also obtained my Master’s in Public Health, worked on a big federal grant conducting research, and I did contract work for the CDC. After years of working in research I pulled the plug and applied to medical school, I needed to work with my hands, not crunch numbers on a computer. From my first day in medical school there was no question, it was plastic surgery or bust. I worked VERY hard in medical school, spending many days in the library and at my kitchen table until wee hours in the morning. Plastic surgery is one of the most competitive specialties and you have to hit certain benchmarks with your scores on the big exams in medical school or you will not even be allowed to apply for a plastic surgery residency. I will never forget the day that I got that important score back, the one that determines if you can be a plastic surgeon, or if you have to change careers to a less competitive medical field. I had a week-long break and I was on an airplane headed to San Francisco to spend a week with a good friend of mine. I received an email notification while I was on the plane with my Step 1 score. I thought I was going to vomit, the page took forever to load, and when it finally did I saw that score that meant I could apply for plastic surgery residency. I landed in San Fran and we drove to a great little restaurant called The Slanted Roof and had champagne with lunch. Those are memories I will never forget.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Connecting with people. The most rewarding part of my work is not the before and after photograph, it’s the human that wears the skin, the human who’s life has been changed for the better. I think for me my business is very personal because I was the patient before I was ever the surgeon. I know what it is like to be on the other side, and it helps me connect with and understand my patients. I think it also helps me screen out patients that are seeking plastic surgery for the wrong reason. I will not offer surgery to patients if they are chasing some social media ideal that doesn’t exist in real life. I believe in offering real surgical solutions for real problems.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

When I was in residency one of my attendings (the surgeons that are in practice and teaching) told me that I needed to spend time with Dr. George Toledo because of his skill with rhinoplasties. I have a rule for myself, and I put this into practice a lot while in residency, that if there is ever an opportunity to learn – take it. I had a few free days because my assigned attending for the month was traveling (this is super rare in residency) and so I called Dr. Toledo and asked if I could come watch rhinoplasties with him. We clicked right away. I saw immediately that he was a perfectionist in the operating room and would not finish a case until everything that he could control was perfect. We clicked when it came to our conversations about healthy living, pursuing longevity, and a curiosity about the world and travel. I felt like it was home for me and I had a gut feeling so I told him that he needed to bring me on. Over time we came to an agreement and I joined his practice as an independent contractor which allows me to have full autonomy over my own business but also benefit from his mentorship in business and plastic surgery. Now I get to show up to work every day in an office where the staff feels like family and I have a built in mentor sharing the office and operating room.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.highlandparkplasticsurgeon.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/highlandparkplasticsurgery/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070376209756
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@DrLindseyPlasticSurgery?si=0JujuuhtQmrrpYus
• Other: TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@dr.lindseyplasticsurgery?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc