October 1, 2023 • 49 mins
Ever imagined the fascinating journey and meticulous artistry involved in facial plastic surgery? Well, cue Dr. Mike Nayak, a master in the field who’s equally acclaimed for his enlightening social media education. Join us as we uncover the story of this Southern Illinois native who found his calling amidst scalpels and sutures, and the profound role of mentorship and intellectual humility in his career.
Prepare to be intrigued as we transition into the captivating realm of medical aesthetics branding with Dr. Nayak. Hear how his keen foresight led him to register the Avani Derm Spa domain, a move that would eventually culminate in a successful enterprise 11 years later. Learn about the power of storytelling, patient interaction, and innovative marketing techniques that propelled his brand's success. Ever thought billboards could be a game-changer? Dr. Nayak's phenomenal branding journey will make you think again.
Finally, we delve into uncharted territory as we discuss the future of medicine, aesthetics, and the potential role of AI and robotics. Will they replace the human touch or enhance it? Dr. Nayak shares valuable insights on this topic and more, including the importance of personality in branding and his take on various intriguing subjects. From the strangest food he's ever eaten to the superpower he would choose, this conversation is as enlightening as it is entertaining. So buckle up for an incredible discussion with Dr. Mike Nayak that explores the professional and personal side of the man behind the scalpel.
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IG @drhamrah
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Alright, everybody, welcome to the Darihammer
podcast.
Today I have a very specialguest, for three reasons.
Number one he shares the samepassion as I do, which is
rhinoplasty, and then anotherpassion, which is face and neck
lift.
And the third passion iseducation.
(00:26):
This gentleman, he's sopassionate about what he does
that he takes time to personallyeducate his audience, his
patients, on social media,handling entire campaigns
himself, responding to commentshimself and it's very rare to
(00:48):
find a person that is sopassionate about what he or she
does that they take the time,which is many hours.
I can attest to that in doingall this work after coming home
from work or within a busyschedule at work.
Dr Mike Nyak, who is my specialguest, whom I have the privilege
(01:10):
to meet personally and actuallywe're on the same podium, I
don't know how many years ago,four or five years ago, talking
about rhinoplasty at one ofthese scientific meetings.
One of the most talented,intelligent and, at the same
time, humble people andcolleagues that I've ever met.
So it's a privilege for me tohave him here to take time out
(01:32):
of his busy schedule to join mehere on something that I'm
passionate about, which is alsoeducation, and talking about
stuff that I love, so this iswhy it's so special.
So, without any further ado,mike, welcome to my podcast.
Thanks so much for coming on.
(01:53):
I see you're a cat person andI'm personally a dog person, but
you know that's what makeseverybody special.
We all have our own pet peeves,passions, and today we're going
to talk about yours, and thankyou very much for coming on,
mike.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
You're welcome.
I don't charge Rocky here.
Whenever he makes a cameo, puta nickel in a bucket or
something.
We have cats and dogs aroundthe house, but Rocky is the one
that typically likes to join thepodcast.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I don't know why, yeah, I see one on your social
media all the time, so that'swhy I know him already.
So, mike, tell it before wedive into very interesting and
fun topics.
I just want the audience tolearn a little bit about you,
get to know you.
Tell us a little bit about yourbackground, where you grew up
(02:48):
and how your journey started,and at what point did you know
you're going to become a facialplastic surgeon, since it's kind
of a niche specialty, if you so, will you know for the audience
that doesn't know it's a facialplastic surgery really focuses
on surgery of the head and neck,and then we have a general
(03:10):
plastic surgeon that deal withthe entire body.
So, mike, tell us where did yougrow up and what is the thing
that really inspired you tobecome a doctor first, then a
surgeon and then a plasticsurgeon?
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Well, so I grew up in Southern Illinois, eppingham,
illinois, about two hours eastof here.
I live in St Louis right nowand, like many Indian kids in my
generation, had two physicianparents.
They came in for residencytraining and sorry, cats
everywhere now.
They came in for residencytraining and you know I had two
(03:48):
doctor parents growing up, somedicine is always in the
household.
It was in medical school thatyou know I liked all the
diagnostic medicine.
I really really loved internalmedicine.
I liked all those kind ofintellectual parts of medicine.
But I also liked the technicaland you know I wanted to decide
(04:10):
on an ENT residency because itwas partially a medical field,
partially a surgical field and,you know, hyper technical and I
really enjoyed that concept.
In my second year at ENTresidency you've had a quarter
of ENT as facial plastic.
So we got a lot of exposureinto facial plastics and it's
kind of like picking a major incollege.
(04:31):
You get through this process,you know you start broad and you
add courses that you like andyou drop courses that you don't
like until you have your ownfocus, you know.
So my focus ended up beingfacial plastics surgery.
So that was kind of theevolution from general medicine
through ENT to facial plasticssurgery and then, as you know,
(04:53):
you learn more in your first sixmonths after you finish
everything that you do in yourentire medical school residency
fellowship track leading up tothat moment.
So that's the best part aboutthis field is you know, you and
I are still going.
We don't do anything the sameway we did five years ago, nor
will we five years from now.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So it's an ongoing journey.
And why is that?
Because, as you know many ofour colleagues, I see there's
like three groups of us.
There's the ones that keepdoing what they've been doing
for years.
They don't really like changingthings, which is great, it
works for them, it works for alot of their patients.
Then there's other group theyjump on every new, maybe gimmick
(05:34):
that comes out and at leasttest it with a critical sense.
And then some are more businessoriented, some are more
academically oriented.
And then there's the one in themiddle which is, I think, the
very small group who does havethe intellectual humility to at
(05:55):
least have an open ear and openeye out on new things but
evaluates them really with asound scientific basis and then,
if, when the time comes thatsomething valuable comes along,
really integrates it.
So more of a cautious butcurious way.
(06:15):
So which group are which?
Which characteristic do youpossess?
And I mean, I know the answer,but I want you to tell the
audience the most importantquestion within that is why what
made you the surgeon you aretoday, that is, constantly
(06:36):
evolves.
Like you said, you're not doingthe same things today that you
did five years ago but at thesame time is cautious enough not
to, so to speak, fall for thesegimmicks.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I think a lot of.
It's a big question.
I think in your first severalyears, into the first several
years of your practice, when youare at the beginning, whether
you're in solo, private practiceor in academic group practice
your first few years reallyshould be spent emulating the
people that trained you.
That's not a time to innovate.
That's not a time to goshopping for all brand new
(07:14):
techniques, because you don'thave a foundation yet by which
to assess what is crazy and whatis revolutionary and what's
likely to work and what's beendone 10 times before and a
different wrapper, and you justdon't know enough about it yet.
So I think your first four orfive years really are meant to
hone your skills as a surgeonand emulate what you have seen
(07:35):
working.
Even if it doesn't workperfectly, it works safely, and
you do that at the beginning.
As you have developed afoundation and understanding in
the field.
Then you start to understandwhere the options are, where the
opportunities are, where therough edges are.
You start to understand whatworks predictably in your hands,
what is typically lesseffective in your hands.
(07:58):
But you also have theperspective now to actually
meaningfully assess and judgenew techniques as they come out
or even old techniques as theycome back and you're not quite
so much a wide-eyed babe, youhave a little bit of context,
(08:18):
and so then it becomes safe tostart adding pieces on or making
changes.
So I'd say early on youshouldn't be jumping on every
trend.
It's kind of a mid-tier pointwhere you are stable enough and
curious enough that you knowwhat to jump on.
You're able to bring on newskills just from having watched
(08:42):
them or heard about them, and Ido think there's kind of a
senescent trend where everythingis.
You've had enough excitement,you're looking for more
predictability, hit doubles allday long, and I think in that
senescent period I think peopletypically don't bring on a lot
of new things too.
(09:02):
So every surgeon's different,but I think that's probably the
arc that every surgeon follows.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with one's
personality too.
From what I'm here, from whatyou're saying is two character
traits that you possess and Ifeel you need to possess to be
able to follow through with whatyou just said is number one is
patience and number two ishumility, and this goes under
(09:32):
the broad umbrella ofself-awareness.
Why do you think that there'sso many colleagues that actually
don't possess enoughself-awareness to know what you
just know?
How much did your mentorsinfluence you and teach you
these very things that you justsaid?
(09:53):
Because I think everything withus starts with mentorship.
I mean, I can tell from my pointthat my mentor always told me
the very things that you juststated and it always sticks in
my head and every decision Imake.
It's like there's a devil andthen there's the angel and what
(10:15):
you just said being patient andbeing critical, thinking
critically is the very thingsthat you need to what you just
said.
So some of us may be naturallytalented or have the natural IQ
to be able to come to thisconclusion, but others in my
case, it was my mentors.
(10:35):
What role did your mentors playfor you in how they built you
as an ever-evolving surgeon,academician and educator.
And, by the way, who were they?
Who were they?
Speaker 1 (10:54):
That's a good question.
So mentorship is huge.
When you present at a nationalmeeting, usually have your title
slide, and then the next slidethat you put up is typically
your disclosure slide, whatfinancial interest complications
you might have in yourpresentation.
I usually have zero of those ormaybe one, but then I actually
(11:17):
literally put up a slide aboutmy mentors and I'll say, yeah,
this is who I learned all thesethings from.
If I don't have a financialdisclosure slide, it is then the
very first slide after my titleslide.
Otherwise it's the second slideafter my title slide, because I
think it's important to realizethat none of us come up with
all this on the room, and soI'll use the bottom line of
presentation to say very few ofthe things I'm going to tell you
(11:39):
started with.
I'm fortunate that I'm able tointegrate things well and
assimilate things well and maybeoptimize things, but I can't
say I've come up with any huge Cchanges on my own.
So, mentorship wise, Imentioned my physician parents.
My dad is 77 now and hecontinues to work full time.
(12:00):
He's a phenomenal.
He's a urologist.
Oh, he's very young still.
Yeah right, he's almost figuredit out.
From a fellowship standpoint, Idid fellowship with the Glass
Gold, mark Alvin and RobertGlass Gold.
I was a small family practice.
(12:20):
Mark did all the aging facesurgery and he was in our Facial
Plastic Academy on the veryfront edge of deep plane
facelift.
He also was an early adopter offat transfer.
He did a little bit ofliposuction, so he's an early
adopter of two-mesant anestheticdosing.
So I feel like those were veryfortunate things for me, because
(12:42):
in the early 2000s deep planefacelift was nascent, two-mesant
anesthetic was not everywhereand Coleman or a Marr-style fat
grafting were just beginning,and so I feel like I got three
real lucky breaks through.
Mark Alvin was a careerrhinoplasty surgeon and he did
(13:04):
endonaisal rhinoplasty for thefirst 20 years of his career and
then switched in the 80s toopen structure, which was almost
like eating his hat, but he washumble enough and curious
enough to know a better thing.
When he saw it he changed hismid-career.
I've got a ton of rhinoplastyfrom Alvin.
(13:26):
And then Robert was the youngerone.
At that time he was only one ortwo years into his actual
practice post-fellowship and sohe was Mr Injectable.
When I first walked in therewas still all the collagen and
radiance which is what RADS usedto be when it was just a X-ray
stop tissue marker, thosecollagen and radiance.
(13:46):
And then, while I was there,restylane the first HA in the US
came out and so Robert made avery vibrant practice of
injectables.
So I felt like I was on the topof a butter.
I had a rhinoplasty expert, kindof cutting-edge aging face
liposuction fat transfer guy,and someone who's a doc that was
doing he was doing tear crops.
(14:08):
Robert was doing tear crops in2003.
No one had heard of that, so Iwould absolutely consider them
mentors.
But even now I'm 51, I stillhave mentors.
So I would say Andrea Arswaldin Brazil I'd consider a huge
mentor.
Tim Martin even though I'm ENTFacial Plastic Strain.
About 10 years ago Tim Martin,who was a plastic surgeon,
(14:32):
general plastic surgeon, reallygave me a better understanding
of the neck than I had, eventhough I was a head and neck
trained guy.
John Holds, oculoplasticSurgeoning Town, absolutely
opened my eyes, so to speak, toeyes.
And then Boris Checker.
You know, really, boris Checkeris a phenomenal rhinoplasty
(14:53):
surgeon.
He's done well.
I think he's the best livingrhinoplasty surgeon right now.
He put me on the radarpreservation.
I did the opposite thing fromAlbum.
I did 20 years of openstructure and now I'm doing
entirely in the nasalpreservation.
So I'd say those are the peopleat the moment that I would
identify as the people that aremy current greatest mentors.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And how much of your mentors or how much of it is it
you and how much of it is ityour mentors that inspire you to
?
You're learning every day.
I mean, you are evolving yourtechniques every day.
You don't shy away or arehumble enough to go and train
with people like Checker indoing endonazole preservation,
(15:35):
rhinoplasty, et cetera.
What is it?
Is it like just your curiosityand is it passion?
How much of it is yourinstilled by your mentors and
how much of it is it just yourpersonal trade?
Great, thanks a lot.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah, I think the curiosity is more innate.
I think there are people thathave access to lots of different
.
We've all seen residents in ourprogram who are in the exact
same program with you, with thesame opportunities as you, and
when the day's over they go home.
There's others that when theday's over they're kind of
lingering discussing reading.
That part is innate and it'snot.
(16:16):
It's not good or bad, it justis.
Some people are.
This is my hobby too, so I justfind it fascinating.
I was built to be in this spot.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, I 100% agree with you.
Every time I interview someonelike yourself, anyone that's
successful or hyper successfulin what they do, and I compare
us a lot to athletes.
If you look at all theseathletes like I don't know Kobe
Bryant, steph Curry, michaelJordan, I mean all of those
people they're always the firstones that come to practice and
(16:51):
the last ones to leave.
It's not because they want tooutdo everyone else, it's
because they love what they do.
They're competing withthemselves and there's so much
parallelism in any professionand, to be honest, for someone
that feels the same way as youdo, you definitely are an
(17:13):
inspiration.
And to continue, that it'salways good to know when you're
not alone and when you havesomeone that shares the same
passion, makes you followthrough and just gives you more
energy because, let's face it,what you do is not easy.
So many people always see theglitz and gland.
They don't know the hours andthe miles you put in.
(17:35):
And, yes, you do it for passion.
You do it for yourself.
It's a selfish reason, but it'sstill a lot of hard work.
It's more work than anybodywould be willing to do, just
because the passion doesn'tdrive them as much.
So which one do you love morerhinoplasty or facelift?
People ask me that question.
I can't answer it.
Do you have an answer?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, so it varies.
I will tell you, about a yearand a half ago I almost gave up
rhinoplasty.
I almost gave up rhinoplastybecause I was kind of bored of
it and I feel like there's acompetent rhinoplasty surgeon in
every field of vision.
No matter where you're standing, no matter where you turn your
(18:19):
head, there's a competentrhinoplasty surgeon.
Especially if you're in abigger city or Europe or South
America, there are morerhinoplasty surgeons than there
are Catholic priests.
There's just everywhere.
So about a year and a half agoit came very close to giving up
rhinoplasty.
It's because I had demand forwhatever there is and I feel
(18:44):
like there's plenty ofrhinoplasty surgeons and I'm
just going to focus on agingfaith.
What stopped me from doing thatwas the whole preservation thing
.
So right around then is when Igot a new challenge, more
serious, about endonagealpreservation.
All of a sudden I was sick ofthis toy and they unleashed the
(19:10):
next generation.
The box showed up at my doorand I opened it up and it's a
brand new toy.
It's better than it ever was,and it got my full attention
again and so for a minute Ialmost gave up rhinoplasty and
now I absolutely love it again,absolutely love it.
I get excited talking about it,and it allows me to keep what I
(19:34):
really like doing, which ismaking balanced full face
transformations.
You can't do that if you don'tdo those.
So it was for two of us.
I'm glad I didn't give it upbecause, like I said, now it's
one of my very favorite thingsto do again and it allows me to
do what I really want to do,which is do the entire stone
arch and also the keystone inthe middle, and then that's the
(19:58):
key.
So that's the answer.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I almost gave up rhinoplasty.
Wow, I didn't know that.
That's pretty interesting,which makes sense At some point.
Things get so, become soroutine that once it's not a
challenge anymore.
And it's interesting that yousay that about rhinoplasty.
Personally, I feel everyrhinoplasty case is a challenge
with itself, not technically, soyou're mentioning the technical
(20:21):
aspect of it.
For me, the challenging aspectis more the patient management.
So when I do rhinoplasty, 90%of my effort goes into the
preoperative phase and trulytrying to understand what is it
that the patient is envisioning.
People say, oh, I want anatural nose, I want this nose.
(20:42):
They might mean one thing, youmight interpret another thing,
and that's to me, the bigchallenge for me, going to the
operating room I need to have aclear bullseye and I need to
clearly understand what thepatients mean when they say
something.
So I can because I knowtechnically I can deliver it.
Like I said, technically atsome point it's not a challenge
(21:02):
anymore, it's just a process.
But the biggest challenge Ifeel in rhinoplasty more so in
anything else, like the agingphase, for example is knowing
what the patient wants, ismaking that designer nose that
the patient wants, as opposed tohaving a signature nose that
you put on every single phase.
So that's the part.
(21:26):
The interpersonal aspect is whatchallenges, what still gives me
a lot of joy, especially afterthe fact, when the nose is done
and the patient looks at it andabsolutely loves it and says
this is exactly what I wanted.
And so that joy that I getpersonally, that dopamine
(21:48):
release that I get, that's thepart that I enjoy with
rhinoplasty and for me I don'tthink it's ever going to get
boring.
But I hear you from technicalaspects.
Obviously at some point it'snot a challenge anymore, which
is a very steep learning curve.
I don't know how it was for you.
For me it was a very steeplearning curve.
But to the aging phase, nowyou're an absolute expert in a
(22:12):
deep playing face and neck liftand to the point that you're
actually now a brand, and inmedical school, obviously, we
weren't taught anything aboutbranding, marketing or business
for that matter.
Now I don't think that you havea business degree of some sort
(22:32):
no, right, so there's very fewof us that have it, but you have
established yourself as a verysuccessful brand that is known
internationally.
Was that a coincidence?
Is that something that you hadplanned, anticipated?
If so, what strategies did youimplement and if not, at what
(22:57):
point did you realize that it'sactually happening or it's
happened before you evenrealized it?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
That's a good question.
A couple of things youmentioned earlier on.
I can't remember what it wasabout, how I came to be in this
field with facial plasms and howthe evolution was.
One of the things I didn'tmention was I think this is a
field where personality mattersand where ability to speak to
(23:27):
people matters.
You were just talking aboutyour patient manager, priya
Pankaj.
With Rhino Plasty I did a lotof performing in college and
that kind of stuff.
Being comfortable talking topeople and interacting with
people and telling the story andguiding the story and guiding
the dialogue and guiding theperson's mental journey is part
(23:47):
of what we do.
I think that's another innateskill that if you're going to be
super successful in this field.
I'm more introverted in myprivate life.
We'll go to school, functionand I can't wait to get out of
there.
Well, because all day you're on, all day.
At some point you just want togo home and sit with your cat.
I'll tell you.
(24:13):
I remember in December of 1998or January of 1999, I was
sitting at Mass General Hospital.
I was the intern on the urologyservice and I registered the
domain name AvniDayspawcom.
I registered that domain name.
(24:34):
Avni is my wife's first name.
I registered AvniDayspawcom in1999.
That was five years before Iwould then finish surgical
training.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Can you take it, because I knew at some point.
How did you know then?
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Yeah, I knew at some point that I would want a med
spa that I could split off as aseparate entity.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
This is very interesting to me because med
spas weren't a big thing backthen as an intern.
Did you know a med spa?
How did you even?
Speaker 1 (25:11):
I just thought, coming, I knew non-surgical
aesthetics was going to continueto grow.
I also knew that if it wasniac-niac everything you talked
about me being a brand it'sgreat that when I retire the
brand becomes valueless.
That was five years before Ifinished training.
I registered that domain name.
At that point it wasAvniDayspaw.
We've since suddenly rebrandedit AvniDermspaw, but the concept
(25:32):
is the same.
That I did in 1999.
Finished fellowship in 2004.
By 2010, I had moved into ourmain building now and actually
opened up AvniDermspaw.
That was 11 years after thedomain name was registered.
That piece of the business nowhas 17 providers, about 40 total
(25:58):
employees on that side of thebusiness.
It functions totallyindependently and is a totally
different business unit.
That was one of the thingsthat's upcoming as far as
branding my surgical piece.
I'll tell you two interestingthings.
My mentor, alvin Glassgold, therhinoplasty guy.
(26:22):
I was allowed to sit in on allof their meetings, their
advertising meetings or whatever.
At that time they were doingnewspaper ads.
He I remember him saying at ameeting no one reads the words
on these newspaper ads.
He was talking to the designerand upset with her a little bit
because it was lots of text andhe's like, make the pictures
(26:43):
bigger.
All they want to see is abefore and after picture.
They're not reading anythingthat you put on there, just I
want to before picture, afterpicture.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
That's early social media man.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, so that was print advertising in 2003 is
what we're relating to here.
So that really stuck with meand so pre-social.
The only advertising I did is Idid billboards in St Louis and
I did the Alvin model.
They had a big before picturenext to a big after picture and
(27:17):
three words either nose by Niacor neck by Niac, and that's all.
The billboards had two picks,three words, and there is a
thing called a long tail keywordwith Google, which is when you
sit down in front of your Googlesearch box and you start typing
, Google will try to guess whatyou're.
(27:38):
It's going to complete what youare searching for ahead of you
based upon the behavior ofothers, and so what it's what
it's suggesting to your what'scalled long tail keywords.
These are not things you canbuy.
It's not.
It's not buying a keyword orbuying a search term.
It's Google trying to autocomplete your typing as you go.
That's called a long tailkeyword.
And so I started putting thosebill, those billboards, up
(28:00):
around 2006, 2007, somethinglike that.
I really just had those wordson the nose by Niac or neck by
Niac, with pictures.
They weren't on my social,cause it didn't have social.
They weren't on my print ads,cause I didn't have print ads,
they were solely on thosebillboards and that's.
People went home and typedthose phrases into Google to
(28:22):
figure out how to get a hold ofme.
That it changed Google's longtail keyword behavior.
So you could try it now you sitdown in front of your browser,
you type nose by or neck by andif not, the very first will be
one of the first few things thatwill complete for you will be
Niac.
So that was kind of branding atthat stage to get everyone in
(28:42):
my town, If I think if they'rethinking about no surgery or
neck surgery, it should be inthe front of their mind.
And then when social came out,it was just a whole different, a
whole different.
So it was social came out.
My big push was those twophrases nose by Niac and neck by
Niac.
They carried them over from mybillboard days and I started
really pushing deep, neck liftreally hard.
(29:04):
I think I'm one of the firstpeople that really pushed.
I technically have a trademarkon the name deep neck.
Do you know what?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
year that was.
What year was it the?
What year?
What the trademark?
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I think the trademark was about five years ago.
I don't enforce it cause Ithink it would be.
It would be divisive and itwould be bad.
But if you look up for the USpatent trademark, deep neck lift
is technically my trademark,but about two or three years
before that is when I reallystarted pushing that.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
So it's deep neck lift, not deep neck lift, not
deep plain neck lift right, Justdeep neck lift.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
It's good to know.
I'll make sure.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I don't think I've ever used it, because usually I
use.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Oh, I don't care, I don't again, I don't enforce it.
I'm just telling you.
You're just asking about themarketing, the business thing,
the branding, all that kind ofstuff.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Great question brings me to another point.
Now, you're so good on socialmedia and, as someone that gets
paid to educate others on how tobuild a social media brand,
like our colleagues, I'mfascinated by that topic and I
was actually a late boomer whenit came to social media.
I actually not only didn't seeit coming, but I didn't even see
(30:18):
it when it was there.
And, just so you know, I reallystumbled upon it in late 2018,
which is pretty late.
Until then, I actually I justhad a Facebook account and I had
an Instagram account that Inever even opened.
So when my phone updated, theapp wasn't even uploaded and I
(30:44):
just didn't understand the powerof it.
What year did you get on socialmedia and what was your social
media journey?
Did you have someone thatadvised you, suggested it, or is
it someone with your, as I cantell from what you just said,
with billboards and stuff, youjust have this mind, this brain,
(31:05):
of the power of branding andmarketing.
So how did you stumble on itand what year was that?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
by the way, I think it was probably 16 or 17, 16
maybe, when we started oursocial media pages and I had
what made you decide to go on it?
I go into national meetings andhearing it in the business
(31:38):
tracks, hearing people talkabout that.
That was going to be wherepatients found us and mentioned
all of you know.
At the beginning was like yes,or.
And then you started hearingthat more and more and like okay
, maybe that's real, you know,probably 16, maybe even 15.
I would say 16 if I had to go.
I had five social mediamanagers and sequences, actually
(32:00):
four people.
One of them took two differenttries at it over the span of
2016 through about 2020.
So I had five different people,four different people, and
that's the through fiveiteration, and it just never
took off.
What were they doing for you?
Well, so you know, they wouldfilm content, they would put
(32:26):
before and afters together, theywould write content, they would
film procedures, they wouldedit the videos.
All the things that I'm doingfor myself right now.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
And, in your opinion, why did that not work?
Because this is veryfascinating for me.
What you're saying isabsolutely right.
It's just that so many peopledon't understand the importance
of what you're about to say andwhat you just said, so I want
the audience really to listencarefully, because this is this,
(32:55):
is it what we're about to talk?
This is really the secret.
So and it's very interesting Tomy knowledge, I think there are
very few of our colleaguesactually manage everything
themselves like you do, and soyou went through that evolution.
I never had someone manage itfor me and then realized they
(33:16):
it's just not going to work.
But so you had.
So I want you to share with uswhy you feel it didn't work and
what point did you make decisionto just do it yourself?
Speaker 1 (33:29):
So there's a.
There's a secondary reason anda primary reason.
The secondary reason that itdidn't work is that, no matter
how good the idea I had was, itwas hard for me to describe it
to them in a way that I thoughtthe execution was what I wanted
it to be.
So that would be kind of thetechnical reason it didn't work.
(33:50):
I might come up with an idea ora concept and by the time I
described it to them and we didrevision and revision, and
revision, and then it came backto me.
It was not quite what I wanted,but we'd spent a lot of time on
it and we'd put out a productthat wasn't exactly to.
You were talking about brand.
There's kind of just your ownmental brand.
It wasn't exactly my voice, youknow, and so Not authentic, it
(34:14):
was all right it's.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
The word here is authenticity.
I think the difference betweena generically produced or
post-produced content is it kindof lacks authenticity because
we communicate a certain waywith our patients or community
and that communication isbecause of who we are and it's
(34:36):
hard for someone else to do thatand, like you said, you can
tell someone how you want it.
It's never going to come outthe same way you wanted to come
out.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
So that's going to be number two.
So number one was more kind ofthe production itself.
It was clear that every mealwas cooked by a different chef
and they never really werecohesive and the quality wasn't
what I wanted it to be.
The second again is then thepersonal connection.
So the message is in number one.
(35:09):
It wasn't delivered quite aswell.
But then number two, when it'sthe provider themselves, when
it's the chef himself facing thecamera, talking about the food,
explaining how it makes it,it's much different than when
one of the head waiters runsaround talking about the chef
and the food and the chef is aside player.
(35:30):
And so, that said, thesecondary and the secondary was
that we can never get theproduction exactly the way I
wish it would be.
But the primary is if I'm theone that the person is
interacting with, it istremendously more sticky than if
they're interacting withsomeone on my behalf and I'm a
(35:50):
third party in the room.
So it has to be a two-partyinteraction.
That's the key.
It's the individual on thescreen and the individual on the
camera.
Two parties, not three.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
So how much do you think this influence your brand
and the growth thereof?
Speaker 1 (36:10):
How much the making of a two-party interaction?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
No, the change you made once you decided to
basically manage your own socialmedia and directly communicate
to your audience, like you arethe one that communicates.
That was nine days, yeah, sohow much do you?
Yeah, it was nine days.
How much did it influence yourbrand and then affect your
(36:34):
business?
I mean, I'm talking about pureROI From time.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Because it takes your time right.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
So you invest the time, so you put in the time you
put in the reps.
I mean, it's not easy.
So for those of you who arelistening, it's not easy to do
it all yourself because you haveto allocate a time.
The good news is you can do itad hoc, you can do it
spontaneously.
I have a conversation with apatient and it's a very commonly
occurring topic.
I'm like you know what?
(37:05):
I'm just going to make a postabout it, and you get better at
it, you get faster, you can dosomething within five to 10
minutes.
You don't have to do this wholeproduction, work on it for a
whole week and then it's At theend of the day, it ends up being
half-assed anyways.
So how did it affect your brandonce you took over yourself?
And if you were to do it again,what advice would you give
(37:29):
others that are in the samestruggling with it?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Yeah, so I'd say that the time investment that you're
referring to or alluding to ordirectly speaking about is the
ROS immeasurable.
So, one people think of socialmedia a lot as a patient
recruitment tool, and that it is, but that's just one of the
(37:53):
things that it does.
Two, it helps people.
Most of the people that watchmy content are never, ever,
going to come see me in reallife, so you're kind of doing a
public service in a lot of ways.
Three, even when they, let'ssay, they've been watching my
content for a while, I try toput on genuinely valuable
(38:14):
content.
We do some fun stuff too.
You want to show somepersonality too, but most of my
content is not just goofy.
I don't see a whole lot ofvalue in that.
So most of my content iscentered around topics that I
think are actually valuable forthe patients to know, ideally
(38:35):
when they're having surgery withme or just in general.
What that does, then, is thepatient, by the time they
contact me, already understandsthings in a way that I think is
accurate.
They're being pre-coached by mebefore they come in and talk to
me, and so I probably put anhour and a half a day of work on
(38:58):
social media.
That saves my screeners andconsult coordinators probably 20
or 30 hours a day when they'retalking to the leads coming in
because they already knoweverything.
When the person that makes it tothe consult stage, they're
waiting for me to stop talkingmost of the time because they've
heard everything that I've said.
(39:19):
And then we also have a lot ofthings that are revolving around
complications and revolvingaround aftercare and that kind
of stuff.
So it even helps my post-opteam because someone's got some
lower eyelid malposition orimpending lower eyelid
malposition or they need to tapeand splint their nose after the
rhinoplasty, that kind of stuff.
I've got videos and all that,and so the post-op group team
(39:41):
will demonstrate and teach themand then they'll send them a
link to the video.
They can watch as many times asthey want and review it at home
.
And so content is for content'ssake, it's for recruitment's
sake, it's for pre-educating theconsult's sake, it's for
continuing to guide thepost-operative patient's sake.
So that hour and a halfprobably plays out as saving
(40:03):
between my pre-operative people,myself in the consultation and
in the post-operative team.
It probably saves 20 or 30hours of effort per day, 100%
effort per day.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
It's like you put in the work beforehand, but then in
the long run it saves not onlyyou time but also the team.
But, most importantly, when thepatient arrives at your office,
by the time that they arrive,they're already so informed.
I see the same thing.
I just what was it?
Monday or Tuesday early thisweek I had a patient come in.
(40:37):
You know.
You say hi, I'm such and such.
I know who you are.
I'm so excited that I finallygot here.
By the way, you don't have totell me anything about the
procedure.
I'm watching all your videos.
I just need you to tell me ifI'm a candidate.
I was like, okay, that's it.
That was fast and that'sexactly to the point what you're
saying it.
(40:59):
But it starts with the content.
You have this amazing naturalability and I love when you use
analogies.
You know the analogies in adescriptive way, that you
communicate some very complexissues and make it just simple
to understand.
That's talent.
You can't learn it.
(41:19):
You can learn it by listeningto Mike Nyak and then kind of
take pointers out.
But you know, I think it startswith the ability to communicate
, to break down a complex issueinto very simple words that any
layman would understand, and Ithink our staff also benefits
(41:40):
immensely from that, becauseyou're essentially educating
your staff as well.
You know, and we always don'twe don't always know how much
our staff understands and howmuch they don't, but it's a
library, it's a digital libraryfor the staff as well as
patients, for anyone, and fordoctors all over the world.
So really big kudos to all thework you put in.
(42:04):
I learned so much.
Your channel is one of myfavorites because I learned
actually a lot about how tocommunicate and also a lot of
interesting facts that I didn'tknow, and so it's fantastic.
That's why I love social mediaand I think it's a great way to
(42:26):
communicate.
And with that, where do you seethe future?
Now, with AI technology likechat, gpt, etc.
Have you played around with it?
How?
If so, how have you integratedit, that type of technology,
into your everyday life practiceand what do you think of it?
Where's the future?
Speaker 1 (42:47):
That's a good question.
I haven't yet played aroundwith it in a great deal beyond
what all of us have.
You know, going into Dolly ormid-journey and describing
something and seeing what popsout, or you know sitting down
and chatting GPT and having aconversation with it I don't yet
know.
I do know that in the rest ofmedicine I feel like in, I think
(43:10):
, diagnostic medicine's got a10-year horizon.
You know, I think within 10years, 90% of things that you go
to see a doctor for now aregoing to be, you know, labbed
and scanned and it's going tocome out through an algorithm
and then the diagnosis andtreatment plan is going to come
out of a different window andsomeone's going to sign it
(43:31):
because they've got to suesomeone in case it goes bad.
But most of diagnostic medicine,I think in the 10-year horizon
is going to be AI.
Truthfully, I also think in the50-year horizon most of
interventional therapeuticmedicine is going to be AI,
slash, robotic.
You know colonoscopy is goingto be something that you know
(43:54):
they lay you down for and theyput the robot on there and the
robot does everything fromsnaking the track to identifying
the lesion, to taking a littlebiopsy, to literally end-to-end
but not bump.
I think that's going to be inthe 50-year horizon and,
ironically, I think, where welive in our field with
(44:19):
aesthetics and beauty and allthe interpersonal things we've
just discussed, I think we'regoing to be the last field in
medicine to be meaningfullythreatened by AI.
That's just.
That's my belief.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah, so you think we get to live to see it like a
robotic AI.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Oh yeah, I think I think.
Well, I mean just think of, Imean, even before AI has really
been a phrase.
You know, liquid prep, papsmears and radiograms.
They've been, they've beenmachine read for 10 years now.
You know that's, that's andwith some human oversight.
But I do think we will live tosee in the diagnostic realm.
(45:05):
You know, the vast majority,the vast majority of it, I think
, is going to be AI Therapeutic.
I'm not sure you and I willlive long enough to see all the
therapeutic stuff feel, but it'sgoing to happen.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Yeah, it's fascinating.
I think we live in it.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
But again I think yeah.
I think what we do, though,because it does involve so much
teasing out what exactly theperson wants, and there's so
much personality in it, there'sso much style in it and there's
back to you know, say,rhinoplasty there's so many
things that it humbles you inthe middle of surgery that it's
hard to have somethingprogrammed for every one of
those moments.
I think I think our field isinteresting.
(45:38):
Maybe from a marketingstandpoint AI is going to make a
big difference in it, but froman execution standpoint, I think
I think we are among the mostsafe in in so far as surgeons go
.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
So, Mike, very fascinating.
We're coming to the end of ourpodcast.
Now I have some questions.
Those are just fast Q and Aquestions, some fun ones.
So first one if you could havedinner with any historical
figure, who would it be?
Let's do Da Vinci, Okay.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Leonardo Da Vinci, I get that.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
What's the movie you can watch over and over without
getting tired of it Superbad,superbad.
Okay.
If you were a superhero, whatwould your superpower be other
than a deep neck?
Reversing time, oh, wow, okay.
If you could teleport to anycity in the world right now,
(46:37):
where would you go?
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Samar and Antarctica.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Okay, wow, you like the cold.
If you had to survive a zombieapocalypse, which three items
would you take with you?
Speaker 1 (46:49):
I don't know something to start fire.
I suppose something to carrywater, and a good book?
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Okay, good.
What's the strangest foodyou've ever tried and liked?
Speaker 1 (47:04):
The fermented shark in Iceland.
Oh my God, it sounds awful,very ammoniated, fermented shark
oh my God, that sounds awful.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
It's fermented shark, not for everybody.
Yeah, I wouldn't even haveheard of it.
If you could have a theme songplay every time you entered the
room, what would it be?
So maybe we'll do it at thenext meeting for you, these are
tough.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
These are tough.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Let's call it Mine would be Rocky Rocky.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
All right, let's do something by Guns N' Roses.
Let's do Scar tissue.
Okay, that's good.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I like that.
I'll get in the room.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
I'll get in the room, my chili peppers, my chili
peppers.
Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah yeah,let's do that.
That would be ironic.
That's a bad one to walk in theoperating with, but whatever.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Okay, last one.
If aliens landed on Earthtomorrow and you were the first
human they met, what's the onething you would tell them about
humanity?
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Don't trust the first thing you hear out of
everyone's mouth and nothing onsocial media.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
That's a good one.
And last one I always ask myguest as a last question.
Is there any questions I shouldhave asked you and that I
didn't?
Speaker 1 (48:33):
No, I think it was a comprehensive interview and I'm
sorry that these last fewquestions were.
I always have a hard time withthe super little questions
what's your favorite?
What's the best?
What's the single?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
My brain doesn't work as well that way, so I
apologize.
I find that always to be aproblem with very cerebral
people.
When you're very cerebral, youlike to think before you give an
answer, and that's the reason.
Thank you again and have anamazing Sunday and talk to you
(49:06):
soon, buddy.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Great Thanks for having me on.
Make sure to look me up whenyou're here, thank you.
Thank you, mike.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
All right episode's over.
I hope you enjoyed myconversation with the one and
only Dr Mike Nyak from San Luis,Missouri, and please don't
forget to leave me a review onApple Podcasts or any outlet
that you listened to thispodcast Until next time, bye-bye
.
Alright, everybody, welcome to the Darihammer
podcast.
Today I have a very specialguest, for three reasons.
Number one he shares the samepassion as I do, which is
rhinoplasty, and then anotherpassion, which is face and neck
lift.
And the third passion iseducation.
(00:26):
This gentleman, he's sopassionate about what he does
that he takes time to personallyeducate his audience, his
patients, on social media,handling entire campaigns
himself, responding to commentshimself and it's very rare to
(00:48):
find a person that is sopassionate about what he or she
does that they take the time,which is many hours.
I can attest to that in doingall this work after coming home
from work or within a busyschedule at work.
Dr Mike Nyak, who is my specialguest, whom I have the privilege
(01:10):
to meet personally and actuallywe're on the same podium, I
don't know how many years ago,four or five years ago, talking
about rhinoplasty at one ofthese scientific meetings.
One of the most talented,intelligent and, at the same
time, humble people andcolleagues that I've ever met.
So it's a privilege for me tohave him here to take time out
(01:32):
of his busy schedule to join mehere on something that I'm
passionate about, which is alsoeducation, and talking about
stuff that I love, so this iswhy it's so special.
So, without any further ado,mike, welcome to my podcast.
Thanks so much for coming on.
(01:53):
I see you're a cat person andI'm personally a dog person, but
you know that's what makeseverybody special.
We all have our own pet peeves,passions, and today we're going
to talk about yours, and thankyou very much for coming on,
mike.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
You're welcome.
I don't charge Rocky here.
Whenever he makes a cameo, puta nickel in a bucket or
something.
We have cats and dogs aroundthe house, but Rocky is the one
that typically likes to join thepodcast.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I don't know why, yeah, I see one on your social
media all the time, so that'swhy I know him already.
So, mike, tell it before wedive into very interesting and
fun topics.
I just want the audience tolearn a little bit about you,
get to know you.
Tell us a little bit about yourbackground, where you grew up
(02:48):
and how your journey started,and at what point did you know
you're going to become a facialplastic surgeon, since it's kind
of a niche specialty, if you so, will you know for the audience
that doesn't know it's a facialplastic surgery really focuses
on surgery of the head and neck,and then we have a general
(03:10):
plastic surgeon that deal withthe entire body.
So, mike, tell us where did yougrow up and what is the thing
that really inspired you tobecome a doctor first, then a
surgeon and then a plasticsurgeon?
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Well, so I grew up in Southern Illinois, eppingham,
illinois, about two hours eastof here.
I live in St Louis right nowand, like many Indian kids in my
generation, had two physicianparents.
They came in for residencytraining and sorry, cats
everywhere now.
They came in for residencytraining and you know I had two
(03:48):
doctor parents growing up, somedicine is always in the
household.
It was in medical school thatyou know I liked all the
diagnostic medicine.
I really really loved internalmedicine.
I liked all those kind ofintellectual parts of medicine.
But I also liked the technicaland you know I wanted to decide
(04:10):
on an ENT residency because itwas partially a medical field,
partially a surgical field and,you know, hyper technical and I
really enjoyed that concept.
In my second year at ENTresidency you've had a quarter
of ENT as facial plastic.
So we got a lot of exposureinto facial plastics and it's
kind of like picking a major incollege.
(04:31):
You get through this process,you know you start broad and you
add courses that you like andyou drop courses that you don't
like until you have your ownfocus, you know.
So my focus ended up beingfacial plastics surgery.
So that was kind of theevolution from general medicine
through ENT to facial plasticssurgery and then, as you know,
(04:53):
you learn more in your first sixmonths after you finish
everything that you do in yourentire medical school residency
fellowship track leading up tothat moment.
So that's the best part aboutthis field is you know, you and
I are still going.
We don't do anything the sameway we did five years ago, nor
will we five years from now.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So it's an ongoing journey.
And why is that?
Because, as you know many ofour colleagues, I see there's
like three groups of us.
There's the ones that keepdoing what they've been doing
for years.
They don't really like changingthings, which is great, it
works for them, it works for alot of their patients.
Then there's other group theyjump on every new, maybe gimmick
(05:34):
that comes out and at leasttest it with a critical sense.
And then some are more businessoriented, some are more
academically oriented.
And then there's the one in themiddle which is, I think, the
very small group who does havethe intellectual humility to at
(05:55):
least have an open ear and openeye out on new things but
evaluates them really with asound scientific basis and then,
if, when the time comes thatsomething valuable comes along,
really integrates it.
So more of a cautious butcurious way.
(06:15):
So which group are which?
Which characteristic do youpossess?
And I mean, I know the answer,but I want you to tell the
audience the most importantquestion within that is why what
made you the surgeon you aretoday, that is, constantly
(06:36):
evolves.
Like you said, you're not doingthe same things today that you
did five years ago but at thesame time is cautious enough not
to, so to speak, fall for thesegimmicks.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I think a lot of.
It's a big question.
I think in your first severalyears, into the first several
years of your practice, when youare at the beginning, whether
you're in solo, private practiceor in academic group practice
your first few years reallyshould be spent emulating the
people that trained you.
That's not a time to innovate.
That's not a time to goshopping for all brand new
(07:14):
techniques, because you don'thave a foundation yet by which
to assess what is crazy and whatis revolutionary and what's
likely to work and what's beendone 10 times before and a
different wrapper, and you justdon't know enough about it yet.
So I think your first four orfive years really are meant to
hone your skills as a surgeonand emulate what you have seen
(07:35):
working.
Even if it doesn't workperfectly, it works safely, and
you do that at the beginning.
As you have developed afoundation and understanding in
the field.
Then you start to understandwhere the options are, where the
opportunities are, where therough edges are.
You start to understand whatworks predictably in your hands,
what is typically lesseffective in your hands.
(07:58):
But you also have theperspective now to actually
meaningfully assess and judgenew techniques as they come out
or even old techniques as theycome back and you're not quite
so much a wide-eyed babe, youhave a little bit of context,
(08:18):
and so then it becomes safe tostart adding pieces on or making
changes.
So I'd say early on youshouldn't be jumping on every
trend.
It's kind of a mid-tier pointwhere you are stable enough and
curious enough that you knowwhat to jump on.
You're able to bring on newskills just from having watched
(08:42):
them or heard about them, and Ido think there's kind of a
senescent trend where everythingis.
You've had enough excitement,you're looking for more
predictability, hit doubles allday long, and I think in that
senescent period I think peopletypically don't bring on a lot
of new things too.
(09:02):
So every surgeon's different,but I think that's probably the
arc that every surgeon follows.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with one's
personality too.
From what I'm here, from whatyou're saying is two character
traits that you possess and Ifeel you need to possess to be
able to follow through with whatyou just said is number one is
patience and number two ishumility, and this goes under
(09:32):
the broad umbrella ofself-awareness.
Why do you think that there'sso many colleagues that actually
don't possess enoughself-awareness to know what you
just know?
How much did your mentorsinfluence you and teach you
these very things that you justsaid?
(09:53):
Because I think everything withus starts with mentorship.
I mean, I can tell from my pointthat my mentor always told me
the very things that you juststated and it always sticks in
my head and every decision Imake.
It's like there's a devil andthen there's the angel and what
(10:15):
you just said being patient andbeing critical, thinking
critically is the very thingsthat you need to what you just
said.
So some of us may be naturallytalented or have the natural IQ
to be able to come to thisconclusion, but others in my
case, it was my mentors.
(10:35):
What role did your mentors playfor you in how they built you
as an ever-evolving surgeon,academician and educator.
And, by the way, who were they?
Who were they?
Speaker 1 (10:54):
That's a good question.
So mentorship is huge.
When you present at a nationalmeeting, usually have your title
slide, and then the next slidethat you put up is typically
your disclosure slide, whatfinancial interest complications
you might have in yourpresentation.
I usually have zero of those ormaybe one, but then I actually
(11:17):
literally put up a slide aboutmy mentors and I'll say, yeah,
this is who I learned all thesethings from.
If I don't have a financialdisclosure slide, it is then the
very first slide after my titleslide.
Otherwise it's the second slideafter my title slide, because I
think it's important to realizethat none of us come up with
all this on the room, and soI'll use the bottom line of
presentation to say very few ofthe things I'm going to tell you
(11:39):
started with.
I'm fortunate that I'm able tointegrate things well and
assimilate things well and maybeoptimize things, but I can't
say I've come up with any huge Cchanges on my own.
So, mentorship wise, Imentioned my physician parents.
My dad is 77 now and hecontinues to work full time.
(12:00):
He's a phenomenal.
He's a urologist.
Oh, he's very young still.
Yeah right, he's almost figuredit out.
From a fellowship standpoint, Idid fellowship with the Glass
Gold, mark Alvin and RobertGlass Gold.
I was a small family practice.
(12:20):
Mark did all the aging facesurgery and he was in our Facial
Plastic Academy on the veryfront edge of deep plane
facelift.
He also was an early adopter offat transfer.
He did a little bit ofliposuction, so he's an early
adopter of two-mesant anestheticdosing.
So I feel like those were veryfortunate things for me, because
(12:42):
in the early 2000s deep planefacelift was nascent, two-mesant
anesthetic was not everywhereand Coleman or a Marr-style fat
grafting were just beginning,and so I feel like I got three
real lucky breaks through.
Mark Alvin was a careerrhinoplasty surgeon and he did
(13:04):
endonaisal rhinoplasty for thefirst 20 years of his career and
then switched in the 80s toopen structure, which was almost
like eating his hat, but he washumble enough and curious
enough to know a better thing.
When he saw it he changed hismid-career.
I've got a ton of rhinoplastyfrom Alvin.
(13:26):
And then Robert was the youngerone.
At that time he was only one ortwo years into his actual
practice post-fellowship and sohe was Mr Injectable.
When I first walked in therewas still all the collagen and
radiance which is what RADS usedto be when it was just a X-ray
stop tissue marker, thosecollagen and radiance.
(13:46):
And then, while I was there,restylane the first HA in the US
came out and so Robert made avery vibrant practice of
injectables.
So I felt like I was on the topof a butter.
I had a rhinoplasty expert, kindof cutting-edge aging face
liposuction fat transfer guy,and someone who's a doc that was
doing he was doing tear crops.
(14:08):
Robert was doing tear crops in2003.
No one had heard of that, so Iwould absolutely consider them
mentors.
But even now I'm 51, I stillhave mentors.
So I would say Andrea Arswaldin Brazil I'd consider a huge
mentor.
Tim Martin even though I'm ENTFacial Plastic Strain.
About 10 years ago Tim Martin,who was a plastic surgeon,
(14:32):
general plastic surgeon, reallygave me a better understanding
of the neck than I had, eventhough I was a head and neck
trained guy.
John Holds, oculoplasticSurgeoning Town, absolutely
opened my eyes, so to speak, toeyes.
And then Boris Checker.
You know, really, boris Checkeris a phenomenal rhinoplasty
(14:53):
surgeon.
He's done well.
I think he's the best livingrhinoplasty surgeon right now.
He put me on the radarpreservation.
I did the opposite thing fromAlbum.
I did 20 years of openstructure and now I'm doing
entirely in the nasalpreservation.
So I'd say those are the peopleat the moment that I would
identify as the people that aremy current greatest mentors.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And how much of your mentors or how much of it is it
you and how much of it is ityour mentors that inspire you to
?
You're learning every day.
I mean, you are evolving yourtechniques every day.
You don't shy away or arehumble enough to go and train
with people like Checker indoing endonazole preservation,
(15:35):
rhinoplasty, et cetera.
What is it?
Is it like just your curiosityand is it passion?
How much of it is yourinstilled by your mentors and
how much of it is it just yourpersonal trade?
Great, thanks a lot.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah, I think the curiosity is more innate.
I think there are people thathave access to lots of different
.
We've all seen residents in ourprogram who are in the exact
same program with you, with thesame opportunities as you, and
when the day's over they go home.
There's others that when theday's over they're kind of
lingering discussing reading.
That part is innate and it'snot.
(16:16):
It's not good or bad, it justis.
Some people are.
This is my hobby too, so I justfind it fascinating.
I was built to be in this spot.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, I 100% agree with you.
Every time I interview someonelike yourself, anyone that's
successful or hyper successfulin what they do, and I compare
us a lot to athletes.
If you look at all theseathletes like I don't know Kobe
Bryant, steph Curry, michaelJordan, I mean all of those
people they're always the firstones that come to practice and
(16:51):
the last ones to leave.
It's not because they want tooutdo everyone else, it's
because they love what they do.
They're competing withthemselves and there's so much
parallelism in any professionand, to be honest, for someone
that feels the same way as youdo, you definitely are an
(17:13):
inspiration.
And to continue, that it'salways good to know when you're
not alone and when you havesomeone that shares the same
passion, makes you followthrough and just gives you more
energy because, let's face it,what you do is not easy.
So many people always see theglitz and gland.
They don't know the hours andthe miles you put in.
(17:35):
And, yes, you do it for passion.
You do it for yourself.
It's a selfish reason, but it'sstill a lot of hard work.
It's more work than anybodywould be willing to do, just
because the passion doesn'tdrive them as much.
So which one do you love morerhinoplasty or facelift?
People ask me that question.
I can't answer it.
Do you have an answer?
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Yeah, so it varies.
I will tell you, about a yearand a half ago I almost gave up
rhinoplasty.
I almost gave up rhinoplastybecause I was kind of bored of
it and I feel like there's acompetent rhinoplasty surgeon in
every field of vision.
No matter where you're standing, no matter where you turn your
(18:19):
head, there's a competentrhinoplasty surgeon.
Especially if you're in abigger city or Europe or South
America, there are morerhinoplasty surgeons than there
are Catholic priests.
There's just everywhere.
So about a year and a half agoit came very close to giving up
rhinoplasty.
It's because I had demand forwhatever there is and I feel
(18:44):
like there's plenty ofrhinoplasty surgeons and I'm
just going to focus on agingfaith.
What stopped me from doing thatwas the whole preservation thing
.
So right around then is when Igot a new challenge, more
serious, about endonagealpreservation.
All of a sudden I was sick ofthis toy and they unleashed the
(19:10):
next generation.
The box showed up at my doorand I opened it up and it's a
brand new toy.
It's better than it ever was,and it got my full attention
again and so for a minute Ialmost gave up rhinoplasty and
now I absolutely love it again,absolutely love it.
I get excited talking about it,and it allows me to keep what I
(19:34):
really like doing, which ismaking balanced full face
transformations.
You can't do that if you don'tdo those.
So it was for two of us.
I'm glad I didn't give it upbecause, like I said, now it's
one of my very favorite thingsto do again and it allows me to
do what I really want to do,which is do the entire stone
arch and also the keystone inthe middle, and then that's the
(19:58):
key.
So that's the answer.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I almost gave up rhinoplasty.
Wow, I didn't know that.
That's pretty interesting,which makes sense At some point.
Things get so, become soroutine that once it's not a
challenge anymore.
And it's interesting that yousay that about rhinoplasty.
Personally, I feel everyrhinoplasty case is a challenge
with itself, not technically, soyou're mentioning the technical
(20:21):
aspect of it.
For me, the challenging aspectis more the patient management.
So when I do rhinoplasty, 90%of my effort goes into the
preoperative phase and trulytrying to understand what is it
that the patient is envisioning.
People say, oh, I want anatural nose, I want this nose.
(20:42):
They might mean one thing, youmight interpret another thing,
and that's to me, the bigchallenge for me, going to the
operating room I need to have aclear bullseye and I need to
clearly understand what thepatients mean when they say
something.
So I can because I knowtechnically I can deliver it.
Like I said, technically atsome point it's not a challenge
(21:02):
anymore, it's just a process.
But the biggest challenge Ifeel in rhinoplasty more so in
anything else, like the agingphase, for example is knowing
what the patient wants, ismaking that designer nose that
the patient wants, as opposed tohaving a signature nose that
you put on every single phase.
So that's the part.
(21:26):
The interpersonal aspect is whatchallenges, what still gives me
a lot of joy, especially afterthe fact, when the nose is done
and the patient looks at it andabsolutely loves it and says
this is exactly what I wanted.
And so that joy that I getpersonally, that dopamine
(21:48):
release that I get, that's thepart that I enjoy with
rhinoplasty and for me I don'tthink it's ever going to get
boring.
But I hear you from technicalaspects.
Obviously at some point it'snot a challenge anymore, which
is a very steep learning curve.
I don't know how it was for you.
For me it was a very steeplearning curve.
But to the aging phase, nowyou're an absolute expert in a
(22:12):
deep playing face and neck liftand to the point that you're
actually now a brand, and inmedical school, obviously, we
weren't taught anything aboutbranding, marketing or business
for that matter.
Now I don't think that you havea business degree of some sort
(22:32):
no, right, so there's very fewof us that have it, but you have
established yourself as a verysuccessful brand that is known
internationally.
Was that a coincidence?
Is that something that you hadplanned, anticipated?
If so, what strategies did youimplement and if not, at what
(22:57):
point did you realize that it'sactually happening or it's
happened before you evenrealized it?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
That's a good question.
A couple of things youmentioned earlier on.
I can't remember what it wasabout, how I came to be in this
field with facial plasms and howthe evolution was.
One of the things I didn'tmention was I think this is a
field where personality mattersand where ability to speak to
(23:27):
people matters.
You were just talking aboutyour patient manager, priya
Pankaj.
With Rhino Plasty I did a lotof performing in college and
that kind of stuff.
Being comfortable talking topeople and interacting with
people and telling the story andguiding the story and guiding
the dialogue and guiding theperson's mental journey is part
(23:47):
of what we do.
I think that's another innateskill that if you're going to be
super successful in this field.
I'm more introverted in myprivate life.
We'll go to school, functionand I can't wait to get out of
there.
Well, because all day you're on, all day.
At some point you just want togo home and sit with your cat.
I'll tell you.
(24:13):
I remember in December of 1998or January of 1999, I was
sitting at Mass General Hospital.
I was the intern on the urologyservice and I registered the
domain name AvniDayspawcom.
I registered that domain name.
(24:34):
Avni is my wife's first name.
I registered AvniDayspawcom in1999.
That was five years before Iwould then finish surgical
training.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Can you take it, because I knew at some point.
How did you know then?
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Yeah, I knew at some point that I would want a med
spa that I could split off as aseparate entity.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
This is very interesting to me because med
spas weren't a big thing backthen as an intern.
Did you know a med spa?
How did you even?
Speaker 1 (25:11):
I just thought, coming, I knew non-surgical
aesthetics was going to continueto grow.
I also knew that if it wasniac-niac everything you talked
about me being a brand it'sgreat that when I retire the
brand becomes valueless.
That was five years before Ifinished training.
I registered that domain name.
At that point it wasAvniDayspaw.
We've since suddenly rebrandedit AvniDermspaw, but the concept
(25:32):
is the same.
That I did in 1999.
Finished fellowship in 2004.
By 2010, I had moved into ourmain building now and actually
opened up AvniDermspaw.
That was 11 years after thedomain name was registered.
That piece of the business nowhas 17 providers, about 40 total
(25:58):
employees on that side of thebusiness.
It functions totallyindependently and is a totally
different business unit.
That was one of the thingsthat's upcoming as far as
branding my surgical piece.
I'll tell you two interestingthings.
My mentor, alvin Glassgold, therhinoplasty guy.
(26:22):
I was allowed to sit in on allof their meetings, their
advertising meetings or whatever.
At that time they were doingnewspaper ads.
He I remember him saying at ameeting no one reads the words
on these newspaper ads.
He was talking to the designerand upset with her a little bit
because it was lots of text andhe's like, make the pictures
(26:43):
bigger.
All they want to see is abefore and after picture.
They're not reading anythingthat you put on there, just I
want to before picture, afterpicture.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
That's early social media man.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, so that was print advertising in 2003 is
what we're relating to here.
So that really stuck with meand so pre-social.
The only advertising I did is Idid billboards in St Louis and
I did the Alvin model.
They had a big before picturenext to a big after picture and
(27:17):
three words either nose by Niacor neck by Niac, and that's all.
The billboards had two picks,three words, and there is a
thing called a long tail keywordwith Google, which is when you
sit down in front of your Googlesearch box and you start typing
, Google will try to guess whatyou're.
(27:38):
It's going to complete what youare searching for ahead of you
based upon the behavior ofothers, and so what it's what
it's suggesting to your what'scalled long tail keywords.
These are not things you canbuy.
It's not.
It's not buying a keyword orbuying a search term.
It's Google trying to autocomplete your typing as you go.
That's called a long tailkeyword.
And so I started putting thosebill, those billboards, up
(28:00):
around 2006, 2007, somethinglike that.
I really just had those wordson the nose by Niac or neck by
Niac, with pictures.
They weren't on my social,cause it didn't have social.
They weren't on my print ads,cause I didn't have print ads,
they were solely on thosebillboards and that's.
People went home and typedthose phrases into Google to
(28:22):
figure out how to get a hold ofme.
That it changed Google's longtail keyword behavior.
So you could try it now you sitdown in front of your browser,
you type nose by or neck by andif not, the very first will be
one of the first few things thatwill complete for you will be
Niac.
So that was kind of branding atthat stage to get everyone in
(28:42):
my town, If I think if they'rethinking about no surgery or
neck surgery, it should be inthe front of their mind.
And then when social came out,it was just a whole different, a
whole different.
So it was social came out.
My big push was those twophrases nose by Niac and neck by
Niac.
They carried them over from mybillboard days and I started
really pushing deep, neck liftreally hard.
(29:04):
I think I'm one of the firstpeople that really pushed.
I technically have a trademarkon the name deep neck.
Do you know what?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
year that was.
What year was it the?
What year?
What the trademark?
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I think the trademark was about five years ago.
I don't enforce it cause Ithink it would be.
It would be divisive and itwould be bad.
But if you look up for the USpatent trademark, deep neck lift
is technically my trademark,but about two or three years
before that is when I reallystarted pushing that.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
So it's deep neck lift, not deep neck lift, not
deep plain neck lift right, Justdeep neck lift.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
It's good to know.
I'll make sure.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I don't think I've ever used it, because usually I
use.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Oh, I don't care, I don't again, I don't enforce it.
I'm just telling you.
You're just asking about themarketing, the business thing,
the branding, all that kind ofstuff.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Great question brings me to another point.
Now, you're so good on socialmedia and, as someone that gets
paid to educate others on how tobuild a social media brand,
like our colleagues, I'mfascinated by that topic and I
was actually a late boomer whenit came to social media.
I actually not only didn't seeit coming, but I didn't even see
(30:18):
it when it was there.
And, just so you know, I reallystumbled upon it in late 2018,
which is pretty late.
Until then, I actually I justhad a Facebook account and I had
an Instagram account that Inever even opened.
So when my phone updated, theapp wasn't even uploaded and I
(30:44):
just didn't understand the powerof it.
What year did you get on socialmedia and what was your social
media journey?
Did you have someone thatadvised you, suggested it, or is
it someone with your, as I cantell from what you just said,
with billboards and stuff, youjust have this mind, this brain,
(31:05):
of the power of branding andmarketing.
So how did you stumble on itand what year was that?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
by the way, I think it was probably 16 or 17, 16
maybe, when we started oursocial media pages and I had
what made you decide to go on it?
I go into national meetings andhearing it in the business
(31:38):
tracks, hearing people talkabout that.
That was going to be wherepatients found us and mentioned
all of you know.
At the beginning was like yes,or.
And then you started hearingthat more and more and like okay
, maybe that's real, you know,probably 16, maybe even 15.
I would say 16 if I had to go.
I had five social mediamanagers and sequences, actually
(32:00):
four people.
One of them took two differenttries at it over the span of
2016 through about 2020.
So I had five different people,four different people, and
that's the through fiveiteration, and it just never
took off.
What were they doing for you?
Well, so you know, they wouldfilm content, they would put
(32:26):
before and afters together, theywould write content, they would
film procedures, they wouldedit the videos.
All the things that I'm doingfor myself right now.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
And, in your opinion, why did that not work?
Because this is veryfascinating for me.
What you're saying isabsolutely right.
It's just that so many peopledon't understand the importance
of what you're about to say andwhat you just said, so I want
the audience really to listencarefully, because this is this,
(32:55):
is it what we're about to talk?
This is really the secret.
So and it's very interesting Tomy knowledge, I think there are
very few of our colleaguesactually manage everything
themselves like you do, and soyou went through that evolution.
I never had someone manage itfor me and then realized they
(33:16):
it's just not going to work.
But so you had.
So I want you to share with uswhy you feel it didn't work and
what point did you make decisionto just do it yourself?
Speaker 1 (33:29):
So there's a.
There's a secondary reason anda primary reason.
The secondary reason that itdidn't work is that, no matter
how good the idea I had was, itwas hard for me to describe it
to them in a way that I thoughtthe execution was what I wanted
it to be.
So that would be kind of thetechnical reason it didn't work.
(33:50):
I might come up with an idea ora concept and by the time I
described it to them and we didrevision and revision, and
revision, and then it came backto me.
It was not quite what I wanted,but we'd spent a lot of time on
it and we'd put out a productthat wasn't exactly to.
You were talking about brand.
There's kind of just your ownmental brand.
It wasn't exactly my voice, youknow, and so Not authentic, it
(34:14):
was all right it's.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
The word here is authenticity.
I think the difference betweena generically produced or
post-produced content is it kindof lacks authenticity because
we communicate a certain waywith our patients or community
and that communication isbecause of who we are and it's
(34:36):
hard for someone else to do thatand, like you said, you can
tell someone how you want it.
It's never going to come outthe same way you wanted to come
out.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
So that's going to be number two.
So number one was more kind ofthe production itself.
It was clear that every mealwas cooked by a different chef
and they never really werecohesive and the quality wasn't
what I wanted it to be.
The second again is then thepersonal connection.
So the message is in number one.
(35:09):
It wasn't delivered quite aswell.
But then number two, when it'sthe provider themselves, when
it's the chef himself facing thecamera, talking about the food,
explaining how it makes it,it's much different than when
one of the head waiters runsaround talking about the chef
and the food and the chef is aside player.
(35:30):
And so, that said, thesecondary and the secondary was
that we can never get theproduction exactly the way I
wish it would be.
But the primary is if I'm theone that the person is
interacting with, it istremendously more sticky than if
they're interacting withsomeone on my behalf and I'm a
(35:50):
third party in the room.
So it has to be a two-partyinteraction.
That's the key.
It's the individual on thescreen and the individual on the
camera.
Two parties, not three.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
So how much do you think this influence your brand
and the growth thereof?
Speaker 1 (36:10):
How much the making of a two-party interaction?
Speaker 2 (36:13):
No, the change you made once you decided to
basically manage your own socialmedia and directly communicate
to your audience, like you arethe one that communicates.
That was nine days, yeah, sohow much do you?
Yeah, it was nine days.
How much did it influence yourbrand and then affect your
(36:34):
business?
I mean, I'm talking about pureROI From time.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Because it takes your time right.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
So you invest the time, so you put in the time you
put in the reps.
I mean, it's not easy.
So for those of you who arelistening, it's not easy to do
it all yourself because you haveto allocate a time.
The good news is you can do itad hoc, you can do it
spontaneously.
I have a conversation with apatient and it's a very commonly
occurring topic.
I'm like you know what?
(37:05):
I'm just going to make a postabout it, and you get better at
it, you get faster, you can dosomething within five to 10
minutes.
You don't have to do this wholeproduction, work on it for a
whole week and then it's At theend of the day, it ends up being
half-assed anyways.
So how did it affect your brandonce you took over yourself?
And if you were to do it again,what advice would you give
(37:29):
others that are in the samestruggling with it?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Yeah, so I'd say that the time investment that you're
referring to or alluding to ordirectly speaking about is the
ROS immeasurable.
So, one people think of socialmedia a lot as a patient
recruitment tool, and that it is, but that's just one of the
(37:53):
things that it does.
Two, it helps people.
Most of the people that watchmy content are never, ever,
going to come see me in reallife, so you're kind of doing a
public service in a lot of ways.
Three, even when they, let'ssay, they've been watching my
content for a while, I try toput on genuinely valuable
(38:14):
content.
We do some fun stuff too.
You want to show somepersonality too, but most of my
content is not just goofy.
I don't see a whole lot ofvalue in that.
So most of my content iscentered around topics that I
think are actually valuable forthe patients to know, ideally
(38:35):
when they're having surgery withme or just in general.
What that does, then, is thepatient, by the time they
contact me, already understandsthings in a way that I think is
accurate.
They're being pre-coached by mebefore they come in and talk to
me, and so I probably put anhour and a half a day of work on
(38:58):
social media.
That saves my screeners andconsult coordinators probably 20
or 30 hours a day when they'retalking to the leads coming in
because they already knoweverything.
When the person that makes it tothe consult stage, they're
waiting for me to stop talkingmost of the time because they've
heard everything that I've said.
(39:19):
And then we also have a lot ofthings that are revolving around
complications and revolvingaround aftercare and that kind
of stuff.
So it even helps my post-opteam because someone's got some
lower eyelid malposition orimpending lower eyelid
malposition or they need to tapeand splint their nose after the
rhinoplasty, that kind of stuff.
I've got videos and all that,and so the post-op group team
(39:41):
will demonstrate and teach themand then they'll send them a
link to the video.
They can watch as many times asthey want and review it at home
.
And so content is for content'ssake, it's for recruitment's
sake, it's for pre-educating theconsult's sake, it's for
continuing to guide thepost-operative patient's sake.
So that hour and a halfprobably plays out as saving
(40:03):
between my pre-operative people,myself in the consultation and
in the post-operative team.
It probably saves 20 or 30hours of effort per day, 100%
effort per day.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
It's like you put in the work beforehand, but then in
the long run it saves not onlyyou time but also the team.
But, most importantly, when thepatient arrives at your office,
by the time that they arrive,they're already so informed.
I see the same thing.
I just what was it?
Monday or Tuesday early thisweek I had a patient come in.
(40:37):
You know.
You say hi, I'm such and such.
I know who you are.
I'm so excited that I finallygot here.
By the way, you don't have totell me anything about the
procedure.
I'm watching all your videos.
I just need you to tell me ifI'm a candidate.
I was like, okay, that's it.
That was fast and that'sexactly to the point what you're
saying it.
(40:59):
But it starts with the content.
You have this amazing naturalability and I love when you use
analogies.
You know the analogies in adescriptive way, that you
communicate some very complexissues and make it just simple
to understand.
That's talent.
You can't learn it.
(41:19):
You can learn it by listeningto Mike Nyak and then kind of
take pointers out.
But you know, I think it startswith the ability to communicate
, to break down a complex issueinto very simple words that any
layman would understand, and Ithink our staff also benefits
(41:40):
immensely from that, becauseyou're essentially educating
your staff as well.
You know, and we always don'twe don't always know how much
our staff understands and howmuch they don't, but it's a
library, it's a digital libraryfor the staff as well as
patients, for anyone, and fordoctors all over the world.
So really big kudos to all thework you put in.
(42:04):
I learned so much.
Your channel is one of myfavorites because I learned
actually a lot about how tocommunicate and also a lot of
interesting facts that I didn'tknow, and so it's fantastic.
That's why I love social mediaand I think it's a great way to
(42:26):
communicate.
And with that, where do you seethe future?
Now, with AI technology likechat, gpt, etc.
Have you played around with it?
How?
If so, how have you integratedit, that type of technology,
into your everyday life practiceand what do you think of it?
Where's the future?
Speaker 1 (42:47):
That's a good question.
I haven't yet played aroundwith it in a great deal beyond
what all of us have.
You know, going into Dolly ormid-journey and describing
something and seeing what popsout, or you know sitting down
and chatting GPT and having aconversation with it I don't yet
know.
I do know that in the rest ofmedicine I feel like in, I think
(43:10):
, diagnostic medicine's got a10-year horizon.
You know, I think within 10years, 90% of things that you go
to see a doctor for now aregoing to be, you know, labbed
and scanned and it's going tocome out through an algorithm
and then the diagnosis andtreatment plan is going to come
out of a different window andsomeone's going to sign it
(43:31):
because they've got to suesomeone in case it goes bad.
But most of diagnostic medicine,I think in the 10-year horizon
is going to be AI.
Truthfully, I also think in the50-year horizon most of
interventional therapeuticmedicine is going to be AI,
slash, robotic.
You know colonoscopy is goingto be something that you know
(43:54):
they lay you down for and theyput the robot on there and the
robot does everything fromsnaking the track to identifying
the lesion, to taking a littlebiopsy, to literally end-to-end
but not bump.
I think that's going to be inthe 50-year horizon and,
ironically, I think, where welive in our field with
(44:19):
aesthetics and beauty and allthe interpersonal things we've
just discussed, I think we'regoing to be the last field in
medicine to be meaningfullythreatened by AI.
That's just.
That's my belief.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Yeah, so you think we get to live to see it like a
robotic AI.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Oh yeah, I think I think.
Well, I mean just think of, Imean, even before AI has really
been a phrase.
You know, liquid prep, papsmears and radiograms.
They've been, they've beenmachine read for 10 years now.
You know that's, that's andwith some human oversight.
But I do think we will live tosee in the diagnostic realm.
(45:05):
You know, the vast majority,the vast majority of it, I think
, is going to be AI Therapeutic.
I'm not sure you and I willlive long enough to see all the
therapeutic stuff feel, but it'sgoing to happen.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Yeah, it's fascinating.
I think we live in it.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
But again I think yeah.
I think what we do, though,because it does involve so much
teasing out what exactly theperson wants, and there's so
much personality in it, there'sso much style in it and there's
back to you know, say,rhinoplasty there's so many
things that it humbles you inthe middle of surgery that it's
hard to have somethingprogrammed for every one of
those moments.
I think I think our field isinteresting.
(45:38):
Maybe from a marketingstandpoint AI is going to make a
big difference in it, but froman execution standpoint, I think
I think we are among the mostsafe in in so far as surgeons go
.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
So, Mike, very fascinating.
We're coming to the end of ourpodcast.
Now I have some questions.
Those are just fast Q and Aquestions, some fun ones.
So first one if you could havedinner with any historical
figure, who would it be?
Let's do Da Vinci, Okay.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Leonardo Da Vinci, I get that.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
What's the movie you can watch over and over without
getting tired of it Superbad,superbad.
Okay.
If you were a superhero, whatwould your superpower be other
than a deep neck?
Reversing time, oh, wow, okay.
If you could teleport to anycity in the world right now,
(46:37):
where would you go?
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Samar and Antarctica.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Okay, wow, you like the cold.
If you had to survive a zombieapocalypse, which three items
would you take with you?
Speaker 1 (46:49):
I don't know something to start fire.
I suppose something to carrywater, and a good book?
Speaker 2 (46:59):
Okay, good.
What's the strangest foodyou've ever tried and liked?
Speaker 1 (47:04):
The fermented shark in Iceland.
Oh my God, it sounds awful,very ammoniated, fermented shark
oh my God, that sounds awful.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
It's fermented shark, not for everybody.
Yeah, I wouldn't even haveheard of it.
If you could have a theme songplay every time you entered the
room, what would it be?
So maybe we'll do it at thenext meeting for you, these are
tough.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
These are tough.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Let's call it Mine would be Rocky Rocky.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
All right, let's do something by Guns N' Roses.
Let's do Scar tissue.
Okay, that's good.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I like that.
I'll get in the room.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
I'll get in the room, my chili peppers, my chili
peppers.
Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah yeah,let's do that.
That would be ironic.
That's a bad one to walk in theoperating with, but whatever.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Okay, last one.
If aliens landed on Earthtomorrow and you were the first
human they met, what's the onething you would tell them about
humanity?
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Don't trust the first thing you hear out of
everyone's mouth and nothing onsocial media.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
That's a good one.
And last one I always ask myguest as a last question.
Is there any questions I shouldhave asked you and that I
didn't?
Speaker 1 (48:33):
No, I think it was a comprehensive interview and I'm
sorry that these last fewquestions were.
I always have a hard time withthe super little questions
what's your favorite?
What's the best?
What's the single?
Speaker 2 (48:44):
My brain doesn't work as well that way, so I
apologize.
I find that always to be aproblem with very cerebral
people.
When you're very cerebral, youlike to think before you give an
answer, and that's the reason.
Thank you again and have anamazing Sunday and talk to you
(49:06):
soon, buddy.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Great Thanks for having me on.
Make sure to look me up whenyou're here, thank you.
Thank you, mike.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
All right episode's over.
I hope you enjoyed myconversation with the one and
only Dr Mike Nyak from San Luis,Missouri, and please don't
forget to leave me a review onApple Podcasts or any outlet
that you listened to thispodcast Until next time, bye-bye
.
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