Getting To Know Dr. Lyle From Lyle Plastic Surgery with Erica DeLong

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It's Erica DeLong for the Carolina PodcastNetwork. This is all things Carolina's in
one place, and this week we'resitting down with doctor Glenn Lyle, who's
starting a new chapter with a LylePlastic Surgery and Aesthetic Center. Welcome,
doctor Lyle. We've been partnered foryears, but tell us what can we
expect with Lyle Plastic Surgery and AestheticCenter. Hello, it's great to be
back. Kind of off a blueRidge road, kind of just turn off

(00:23):
a Lake Boone and it's back inthe There's a lot of medical offices back
there. It's a beautiful space.It's about three thousand square feet. It's
you know, it's my plastic surgerypractice. It's me seeing patients there but
also having a lot of aesthetic treatments. We have a lot of medical devices
to help improve skin, certainly theinjectables. It's pretty much a full service

(00:48):
medspa but also my plastic surgery practice. And it's in a gorgeous location.
It's very pretty, like you hada great designer come over. It's very
welcoming, very clean, bright like, very welcoming. Yeah. Yeah,
it's second floor and virtually every roomthat you're in you see on the tops
of trees, and it's just thatwas what drew me to it. And

(01:08):
you know, it's very personalized,very welcoming place you come in, people
greet you. It's I just likethe layout of it, and it's it
reflects, I think, my personality, and it reflects the personality of my
staff members, who are great.And so it's just my chance to deliver

(01:30):
my type of care and you knowwhat I want for my patients. And
you've been doing this for over twodecades now, how long exactly? Like,
when did you get started your firstyear in plastic surgery? Yeah,
actually this is I'm in my twentyninth year. Okay, wow, so
started in nineteen ninety four. I'veI've gone through five years of general surgery
training. Back then you pretty muchhad to do five years of general surgery

(01:53):
or you could do some others.But uh, and then I did three
years extra plastic surgery. So eightyears later, I'm a plastic surgeon.
Started in Augusta, Georgia at auniversity setting, and I was teaching and
doing very complicated, mostly reconstructive surgeries, and I loved that. It was
very you know, doing everything thatI was trained to do, including hand

(02:16):
surgery, you know, putting fingersand hands back on, putting, helping
women with breast reconstruction. And thenI wanted to move a little bit further
north. I'm from New Jersey,I didn't want to go that far north
and really fell in love with Raleigh, so moved to Raleigh in two thousand.
So I've been in Raleigh's for twentythree years and in North Carolinian.

(02:39):
Technically, yes, I am,I am, I'm I've lived here longer
than anywhere else I've lived, soI do count myself in that in that
category. And you know the firstpart of my practice, first, I
don't know good ten to almost fifteenyears, I did a lot of reconstruction.
So, you know, one ofthe reasons I got into plastic surgery

(03:00):
was when I was a medical student, I kind of knew I want to
do surgery, didn't know if Iwant to do trauma surgery or cancer related
surgery. And when I saw whatplastic surgery could do, what plastic surgeons
could do in terms of restoring people, Yeah, you were not necessarily curing
people of cancer, but you wererestoring people. So that was a big

(03:23):
part of my practice. I dida lot of breast reconstruction, a lot
of skin cancer reconstruction, head netcancer, very complicated type cases, and
that was really my foundation. Butnow I'm restoring people that have you know,
had our aging or I've had pregnanciesor had weight loss, and so
it's still fundamentally the same principles,is just a little bit different focus.

(03:50):
Well, you're bringing confidence back toa lot of women and men. It
worked really hard, and they're like, it's time to love myself more because
I'm gonna be seeing you soon too, and it's like I'm looking forward to
that time to just have that confidenceback. Yeah. And you know,
again, I always thought when Istarted, I didn't I had no intention
really to do a lot of cosmeticsurgery. I was more about I actually

(04:11):
wanted to be a burn surgeon.I wanted to help burn victims and I
did that, and I did alot of, you know, very rewarding
surgeries because you're you're helping people,but you're helping people and when you do
cosmetic and aesthetic surgery, you know, it's a little bit different. As
I've gotten older, I've realized someof that type of surgery that I did

(04:31):
was. You know, it wasa lot of long hours in the emergency
room and in the operating room,and you know, having a family,
you kind of want to have alittle bit more control over your life.
So I think that's why a lotof plastic surgeons do that. I did
it a little bit later in life. No regrets. I very proud of,
you know, what I have done, but I'm also proud of what

(04:53):
I'm doing now, and I'm veryhappy to be doing it for my patients
in my setting and my own cultureof a practice. Lisle Plastic Surgery in
Aesthetic Center is recently open. Sowhat made you branch out? Because you've
worked for many years at other places? What made you branch out and say
I'd like to start my own chapter? You know, yeah, it was
really you know, I've been ingroup practices or partnerships, and in those

(05:15):
situations you're never totally in control ofthe culture of the office or the direction
of the practice. You have tocompromise, you have to you know,
go along with a partner or agroup of partners, and you know sort
of you can't. You can't haveit your way, And I felt like
I wanted to do it my way. I wanted my staff. I wanted

(05:38):
to pick my own staff. Iwanted to pick my own sort of office
culture, which just means how youtreat people, and you know, and
I wanted if I'm going to makea decision and that doesn't work, it's
on me. It's not a sharedthing with another doctor. And honestly,
if you look at plastic surgeons,about seventy percent of plastic surgeons are by
themselves because we are pretty individualistic.I do view myself as a team player,

(06:02):
but you know, I wanted tocreate my own team, and I
wanted to I'm in the last halfof my career, maybe maybe less than
half, but I'm very energized bywhat I do and I really just wanted
to put my own stamp. Andyou know, people go, they're seeing
me, they're seeing my staff.I'm not sharing anything. It's just,

(06:24):
you know, it's not something I'vethought about my whole career. But I'm
happy I'm doing it now. Yourteam with the aesthetic side, what else,
because like you know, when Iwent in for my consultation, you're
doing the plastic surgery, whether it'sface. You know, Timmy talks breast
augmentation, but What are some ofthe services that you offer for the aesthetic
side that can continue bettering your patients. Yeah, well, I mean,

(06:45):
you know, virtually all my patientsthat I operate on, they are welcome
to continue going to my practice foraesthetic treatments, whether it's a botox or
fillers or skin care general, youknow, just general skincare or devices.
And so I have a lot ofmedical, very sort of sophisticated devices that

(07:10):
do different things like skin resurfacing,making, you know, getting rid of
wrinkles and you know, things onthe face. I have a what's called
a niagen plasma device which really makessome huge differences in people's skins, radio
frequency microneedling, which is a wayof improving texture and wrinkles. There's a

(07:31):
lot of them that overlap, butthere's a lot of them that have very
unique features. There's devices to helptighten skin, which is always the so
of Holy Grail and plastic surgy.How do to get tightened skin other than
surgically tightening it. Well, there'sdevices that can do that and to a
limitation, have other devices that arefor you know, feminine wellness. I

(07:55):
probably you know, I kind oflike I call them my toys, and
but they're not toys. They're verysophisticated instruments, and you know, those
are things that are options, buta lot of it's just generally good skincare.
My staff, they're all sort ofcross trained. I do have a
nurse injector. I do have esthetician. I have you know, nurses that

(08:16):
are not only my nurses, butthey meaning my surgical nurses, but they
also help and they learn these devices. Because I want everyone to be able
to come in, whether it's forsurgery or for non surgical intervention or both,
and for everybody on my staff toreally know what's available. They may
not be the one delivering the treatments, but and it's in a more of

(08:39):
a smaller environment, a welcoming environment. I want everyone to kind of feel
like they come in in the doorand everyone knows them by their name,
and it feels like a family whenyou walk in the door. What got
you started in medicine? You know, it's interesting. When I was in
middle school, junior high school,we called it. I wasn't that great

(09:00):
in sciences, but I got interestedin sharks. So I was like sharks.
Okay, so I'm like a sharkguy, and I wanted to study
sharks. That was my goal andit actually actually went and talked to a
ichthyologist as someone who studies fish atthe American Museum of Natural History in New
York, and as I don't know, thirteen or fourteen year old, he
gave me advice and say, well, you got to study physics and chemistry

(09:22):
and math. And I was like, oh, really, I don't do
that, but I really wanted tostudy sharks. And this is right,
this is actually before Jaws came out, before sharks were they didn't have Shark
Week. I just was fascinating withthem. And so I made it my
goal to study sharks, to goto school for a marine biology and I
you know, started doing well insciences. I went to college for zoology,

(09:45):
which is you know, kind oflike biology for animals, and did
summer internships in Florida studying sharks.And I actually went to to graduate school
with her, into medical school studyingsharks. And so I was marine marine
biology major University of Hawaii. II did, you know, dove with
sharks, caught sharks, did otherresearch, actually did my final thesis on

(10:09):
lobsters. But so I was justfascinated, but when I got there,
I realized, you know, I'mnot sure if this is going to make
a big impact on humanity, youknow, and so I just felt like,
you know what, you know,this is fun, this is great.
I can keep up this as ahobby, which I do. I
still scoop a dive, but I'mit's probably not going to have a huge

(10:31):
impact. I'm not gonna you know, save lives necessarily with it, and
you know, so it was adecision then when I and I started thinking
about medicine as at the end ofmy senior year, kind of having those
doubts about it. But when Igot into University Hawaii, I'm like,
well, I'm going to go there, you know. And so I had
a great time. It was twoyears of my life, two of the
best years of my life in termsof adventure. But I'm very glad I

(10:56):
did it that way. Well,first of all, I didn't know that
about you, and I think that'samazing. I also love sharks. What
did your parents say when you're like, I'm gonna pivot from sharks and do
something different. Well, I thinkmy parents are very happy because they always
thought that, you know, ofthe other kids that I would be the
doctor. And you know, they'reproud of me for going to marine biology,

(11:16):
but I think my mother always wantedme to be a doctor, and
you know, so I think theywere they're very supportive of me. But
when I said that, they're veryhappy. And actually I came back home
and I went from Hawaii to Detroit, so there's a there's a little jump.
But you know, I lived withmy parents for the first two years,
and that was nice. I'm veryclose to my parents and and so

(11:39):
it was it was just a nicething for them to have their their son
back and living at home. Andmy mother particularly really likes medicine. So
I come home tell her all thesestories about medical school and the cadavers and
everything, and she was fascinating.Father didn't like that that much. He
wasn't He didn't really have like ahe didn't really like that stuff, but
my mom really was always And tothis day I talked to or and and

(12:00):
we talk about, you know,surgeries and that sort of thing. Are
they still in Michigan. Yeah,my dad passed. My mother still lives
there. As a matter of fact, if you look at my my logo,
it has a thistle on it.And my mother is from Scotland and
the thistle is representing, you know, my heritage, so's a thistle on
it and it's you know, sortof in honor of my mother and my

(12:24):
my heritage. Very cool. Yeah, I like that. And you went
to was a U mass I wentto UMass undergrad. I was a ran
track and cross country there, andthen I you know, studied zoology University
of Hawaii for so while. I'vegot a master's in zoology, a marine
biology essentially, and then Wayne StateUniversity which is in Detroit, and that's

(12:50):
my MD. University of Massachusetts forfive years of general surgery, and I
got board certified and general surgery.And then I did University of Texas Medical
Branch which is in Galveston, Texas. That's and I followed doctor Robson down
there. That was my general surgery, I mean, my plastic surgery.
And then then you pop up andyou're thirty two years old and you're like

(13:11):
ready to go into practice. Wheremost of my friends had already been working
for ten years. I was nowready to hang a shingle. You know
what You've been everywhere? That's sogreat. Well educated you're a staple here
and Riley highly respected. What lifeadvice would you give somebody that's listening right
now, I would say definitely forfrom a career standpoint, anyone listening that's

(13:31):
thinking about medicine. There's a lotof negatives that people hear about medicine,
but it's it's such a rewarding career, you know, It's something that I
would encourage people to continue. Ihate when you hear about all the negatives
about oh, the pay and theyou know, the medical records and all
the other things that go on.There's definitely been a lot of changes,

(13:52):
but it's still a very rewarding career. And you know, like I said,
I would do it again exactly thesame way. If I was able
to go to Hawaii for two yearsand do it like I did, I
would do it that way too,because a lot of times kids take like
a gap year and they take sometime off. This was not an intentional
gap year, but for me,it was a good time to really enjoy
myself do what I always wanted todo, but also become a doctor.

(14:15):
And here I am. I'm stilldoing it after twenty nine years. And
every time I mentioned your name.People are like, oh, I love
doctor Lyle. So you've got agreat reputation here and they all over,
but here in the triangle especially thankyou. Well, what is your motto
that you've set because now that thisis your new practice, what is the
motto that you have for your office. It's a good point. I don't
really have a pure motto. Iwill say that it's the same the same

(14:39):
doctor, the same great care,just a different location. That's sort of
the temporary one. I'm not reallygimmicky, and it's not just about me.
Yes, I do want to deliverthe care that I expect, how
I want to be treated, howI want my family members to be treated,
but also just getting the folks thatare helping me and working with me

(15:01):
and part of essentially partners with meto have the same buy in this,
feel the same way, and soI do want people to feel like family.
I want to treat everyone as ifthey were my friend, you know,
right, not gonna all be myfriends, but I want them to
feel that way. What would yousay is your favorite procedure to do?
Like? You know, I knowyou do many and you've done many things

(15:22):
over the years, But what's beenyour favorite. Well, I do like
mommy makeovers, and because it's it'sinteresting, you know, I would say
that I probably do more breast andbody work than I do facial work,
although I really over the last maybefive or six years, really embraced facial
surgery. But the thing about amommy makeover that strikes me. You know,

(15:45):
when you talk about reconstruction, technicallyit's not considered reconstruction, but I
used to do a lot of breastreconstruction. So I worked with breasts a
lot and trying to make a normallooking breast or a better than normal looking
breast out of someone with breast cancer. So that component, they're usually women
that have either lost volume, theyneed to be augmented, they've drooped,

(16:07):
they need them breastlifted or reduced.And then the tummy component is more comprehensive
because you know, after having manykids, or even one kid, it
can cause a lot of a lotof changes to the abdomen. And so
that, you know, when peopletalk about mommy makeover, I always think
of that is probably the more rewardingof the procedure that I do. You

(16:33):
know, we all have moms,we've all women, not all, but
most have been moms, and soI think I think that's sort of my
favorite because it's it's done in onesetting and patients come out with major changes
to you know, a lot ofparts that are concerning to them. Heard
that people don't like to call ita mommy makeover anymore because they're like,

(16:57):
there's nothing wrong with being a momand it has this negative, you know,
vibe about it, which I don'tthink so, but some do so
as they're an alternative thing, youcall it. Yeah, you know,
as many times as I tried tocall it something different, it's ultimately almost
that combination. And again, mommymakeover refers primarily to the abdomen and the

(17:19):
breast done together. But you know, number one, you know, moms
can be sixty years old and theycould they could they're still a mom and
they still had the thing. Theymay just decide to do it later in
their life. And you know,some people actually didn't have kids. And
usually if you didn't have kids,you may not have as many stretch marks,

(17:42):
you may not have as a diastasis, which is a separation of the
muscles. But a lot of peoplesometimes it's just weight loss. You know,
it could be from weight loss,So I get the same feel from
that people maybe they didn't have pregnancies, but maybe they lost a lot of
weight, especially after bariatric surgery.So I view that. You know,

(18:04):
it's hard to get away from themommy makeover because it's so common and people
request it. You know, ifyou call it, yeah, it's normal,
you just I mean you could say, well, it's a breast reduction
and abdominal plasty, or as abreast breast lift and an abdominal plosta,
is a breast augmentation and abdominal plastyor a breast Uh, maybe it could
be a liposuction of the abdomen,you know, it could be that.

(18:27):
But usually it's more loose skin somesome of the changes that you know,
women go through, and it doesn'tseem fair a lot because men don't you
know, you don't have daddy.I mean, you can call it a
daddy makeover, but usually for guysit's like weight gain. And you know,
we we we were eating the foodof our kids. Oh you're not

(18:49):
done with your tater tuss let meeat those, and then you know we've
all experienced that. So but butthey didn't go the same They didn't go
through the same pain that the womendid. And then the other question about
tummy tucks. When you get inthere and you start to look at muscles
that have spread and stuff, doyou know before it's like a kind of
a not a surprise, but you'relike, Okay, this is what I'm

(19:10):
working with. Yeah, I meana lot of it is physical exam Usually
don't do a lot of extra testingunless we're worried about someone having a hernia.
But usually there's some physical signs whendoing an ass the patient to a
sit up and they get a prettysignificant bulge, you can tell the degree.
Some people do have hernias or anumbilical hernia, which can be fixed

(19:33):
during the procedure, depending in aslong as it's not too complicated. But
I do have that moment of surprise. It's like, wow, that was
that was worse than I thought,or that was better than I thought,
or just a couple of weeks ago, I found a woman that I did
not suspect had a hernia, andshe didn't think she had a hernia,
but she had a hernia. Iwas able to fix it. I've trained
a general surgery, so I'm comfortablewith that. I'm not going to get

(19:56):
in and do a complex you know, redo hernia. I'll leave that to
my general surgery colleagues. But youknow, I've had the training to treat
things as they find and and soyeah, you do find surprises. And
you find sometimes especially patients who havehad bariatric surgery and they do it laproscopically

(20:17):
and they're like, oh, Ididn't have any incision. I just had
these little small incisions, and I'llgo in there and find like a tiny
little hernia and I fix it onthere. It doesn't cost more, just
you know, you do what youneed to be done. Sometimes the appearance
of the abdomen is more of what'sgoing on inside around the organs. People
can have what they call intra abdominalfat, and some people you know,

(20:38):
kind of house more fat in theirtummy regardless of weight, but usually if
you're overweight. So but it is, you know, when you're doing a
tummy tucky, you get to lookat the entire abdominal wall. And you
know, when I did general surgery, usually you're making small incisions to try
to look you know, try tolimit the incision, but you don't really

(20:59):
get a good look at how theabdominal wall is. And that's what we're
you know, plastic surgeons are experted. Doctor Glenn Lyle brand new practice Lyle
Plastic Surgery and Aesthetic Center. Andwho was somebody that has inspired you to
get to get you where you aretoday? Well, actually he just died
this year. It was my mentor. His name was doctor Martin Robson.
He was a When I was inmedical school, I went to medical school

(21:21):
in Detroit. My dad had movedto my parents. My dad got transferred,
so I never lived in Michigan,but because they were living here,
I went to medical school in downtownDetroit. I wanted to go to an
urban center and he was. Hewas the plastic surgery professor, the giving
giving lectures about plastic surgery. Thisis what I didn't know what I wanted
to do. His lectures were sogood. They were about burns and everything

(21:45):
that I I just uh and Igot inspired and I followed him. I
did my training with him in Texas. I kept up with him until he
just recently died. I think hewas about eighty seven years old. But
he was just a true teacher andhe was really my inspiration and as far
as you know, being a father. I know you said when your kids

(22:07):
were maybe younger, you were operatingmore than you had anticipated. But how
do you set boundaries now to turnoff work, you know and be dad
mode? Yeah, well, mykids are older, but I'm still their
dad and hopefully they still need me. We always need our parents always.
Yeah, you know, it's hardto turn off work. I mean,

(22:30):
it is a career. You know. What I do is you know,
I do like to golf. Ilike to have my fun on the weekends.
I'm into sports. I happen tobe an NC State fan. But
nothing against you UNC or Duke Dukefolks, but I go to the football
games. I'm a sports fan.You know, I see my my I
have a son who's at UNC Charlotte. You know, I saw him all

(22:55):
summer. He's at school now.My two other children live in the area,
so they come over. They wereover last night for dinner. So
you know, you're still involved withtheir lives. It's not like the old
days when I was, you know, at soccer practice or something in As
a matter of fact, my oldestson, I was his coach in soccer
and I had to take off earlyto go coach him, and that was

(23:15):
you know, that was something Idid. But honestly, I was working
a lot and I would do thaton those days, but then on the
other days sometimes I wouldn't get hometill eight at night. And I think
that gets old, right, Thatis considering your profession, what would you
say to that person, because it'snot an easy I mean, you're in
school for a long time. Yougot to keep up with a lot of
certification. I mean there's a lot, yeah to get this. I mean

(23:37):
honestly, I people always say,if you had it over it again,
what would you do? I woulddo it again. I mean it is
a sacrifice in your time. Imean, like I said, when I
did it, it was eight yearsof training. You know, back then
you can do seven or eight.Now they do it in six, which
is still a long time. Youknow, if you look at other residencies,
any surgical specialty, you you needthat time because it's repetition, it's

(24:03):
learning all the different organs. Andas a plastic surgeons, I operate from
head to toe basically, so youjust have to have a really good foundation.
So anyone who's considering it, Iwould definitely I think it's the best
profession, honestly, but you know, people have different ideas about lifestyle,
what they want out of their life. I knew what I was getting into

(24:26):
when I did it, and Iwas thinking of a surgical field, and
I couldn't have done anything else.Personally. I love being a doctor,
but I really loved being a plasticsurgeon, right all right, and a
lyle plastic surgery in aesthetic center.Where can they come see you get their
consultation? Yep, We're at thirtynine oh nine Sunset Ridge Road, and

(24:47):
it's Suite two A one and that'sRaleigh and the ZIP two seven six oh
seven. Their website is doctor GlenLyle dot com. And you know,
you can call nine one nine threeoh seven eight five eight five and you
will probably get my daughter who answersthe phone, and then we have many

(25:10):
people answering the phone and make anappointment. I see patients Monday, Wednesday,
Friday, occasionally on Tuesday and Thursday. I operate Tuesday, Thursday and
then Wednesday morning, but I'm alsoback at the office. I try to
be at the office at some pointduring the day Monday, all day Friday,
and then Wednesday. Part of theDay. Thank you so much to
doctor Glenn Lyle with Lyle Plastic Surgeryand Aesthetic Center. This is Erica,

(25:33):
along with the Carolina Podcast Network,all things Carolinas in one place. Make
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