*In 2012, Miami New Times selected Michael “Dr. Miami” Salzhauer as the city’s best plastic surgeon. Since 2014, he and his staff have taken pop culture by storm, sharing live surgeries and behind-the-scenes fun on social media, gaining him over 2 million followers across his platforms.
Patients from around the world travel to his Miami-based practice for a chance to obtain impeccable results – and his wait list is two years long. Now he has a new reality series on We tv that highlights his high-energy day-to-day.
EUR/Electronic Urban Report caught up with Dr. Miami to discuss his new series, the risks and myths of plastic surgery, and social media influence on young women.
Check out our Q&A Below:
READ RELATED STORY: K. Michelle Defends Her Plastic Surgery on HuffPost Live (Watch)
How did the idea come to you to broadcast your surgeries to millions of people on social media?
Dr. Miami: It was a total fluke. What happened was, I had an Instagram account where I would post before and after pictures and it grew to about 90,000 followers. I was so happy with my Instagram account until one day it got deleted. Probably for showing too many nipples. So I was completely depressed, moping around the house, and my 15-year-old daughter, now she’s almost 18, she said ‘Dad, why don’t you try Snapchat?’ And I’m like, ‘Isn’t that for sexing? Why do you even know what Snapchat is?’ And she’s like, ‘No dad. It has a story feature on it.’ And they had just started that story feature on Snapchat. And she showed me how to use it. I went to the office and had the girls in the office install it on my phone and the first patient that day was a pretty, 19-year-old girl, and I said ‘Hey, do you mind if we Snapchat the surgery?’ And we already had consent forms for social media use and she signed off and we Snapchat the surgery. Of course we didn’t show her face or any identifiable signs or whatever. But when I got home I showed my daughter and we had 1800 viewers. So the next day I did it again and it was 4000 and it grew very quickly to 100,000 people watching a day and then eventually to a million and more. So it just kinda took off. But it wasn’t like a grand scheme or a plan. I just kinda fell into it. Like so many things in life.
How is this aspect of using social media to record procedures beneficial for the patient and potential clients?
Dr. Miami: From my patient’s standpoint, they love it because first of all, they get to see their procedure. So after they’re in the recovery room, that night or the next day, they get to watch what happened, which we were never able to do that before. And second, the family that’s worried in the waiting room, they get to watch the procedure as it’s going on and kinda be reassured that everything is going well and everything’s cool. So those are the two major benefits. And the third one is, it educates people. People who are thinking about plastic surgery, they look at it and they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s how it’s done.’ Or they look at it and go, ‘I’d never do that. That’s just crazy.’ But it gives people the ultimate informed consent. We have to talk about educating patients before the surgery to know what they’re in for. This shows everything. So those are the three major benefits, and then the fourth one is education for people interested in going into surgical careers or medicine, and again, it’s to teach them how things are done.
In the premiere episode we see Ashley’s surgery, which was pretty extensive. What’s the recovery time for the type of surgery she had?
Dr. Miami: Ashley’s surgery, it’s a major operation. And I tell people, and there’s no way to sugar coat it, it’s like getting run over by a truck. You feel like crap for the first four or five days. Most people go back to work at two weeks, and you’re not at 100% productivity but you’re like at, 85% for two weeks. Then by one month you’re at 90%, and then that last 10% takes six months until you’re really 100% back to normal and like, the skin feels smooth again and the scars are healed. But that first week knocks your socks off, and you see that on the show. I like that aspect of the show, there’s no sugar-coating.
Ashley has some reservations about the surgery after she’s been prepped for it. How often do patients change their mind right as the surgery is about to begin?
Dr. Miami: That only happened one time in the last 15 years. I’ll never forget her. She was on the table, arms spread out. IV already in and she just freaked out and said, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t do this.’ Took the IV out and ran out of the office, literally in her gown, ran out of ER and into the parking lot and disappeared. Now she came back about a month later. It’s very rare. I remember that one patient very vividly.
Do you have a lot of young women coming in trying to look their favorite pop culture stars, like the Kardashians and Nick Minaj?
Dr. Miami: It’s very often. But actually, more commonly, patients now come in with their favorite Instagram model. Ten years ago, five years ago, it was all about ‘I wanna look like this particular celebrity.’ Now it’s just, ‘I wanna look like this girl who I follow on social media.’ And in some cases I’ll say, ‘Okay, we can try to get us close as possible with your body,’ but in other cases I have to be like, ‘Look, it’s completely unrealistic because of X, Y and Z factors.’ Sometimes it’s important to set the patients expectations to a more realistic level, even if it means breaking their hearts. I have to do it before the surgery. I can’t over promise things.
I’ve read quite a few testimonies from folks who have gone under the knife but later advise others against it because of the meds they constantly have to take for the post-surgery pain. Are many patients usually subjected to a lifetime of pain medications following plastic surgery?
Dr. Miami. No, (laughs) that is a myth. The pain goes away really after the fist week. Most patients are off the pain meds completely. But like I said, the first 4-5 days, on a scale from 1-to-10, it’s like a 7. Ten is like giving birth or breaking a bone, but you’re like a constant 7 at least for 4 or 5 days.
Here’s a reader question regarding people with thyroid disease and how it makes their weight fluctuate. Is plastic surgery a good, safe option for them?
Dr. Miami: I am very very picky about who I operate on. So you can’t have any medical problems whatsoever. If you have a thyroid issue, it has to be extremely well controlled. In addition, I don’t operate on patients with a body mass index above 30. Which excludes a lot or people. So I insist the patients get their weight under control before they have the surgery because plastic surgery is not for weight loss. It’s for contouring. So if your BMI is above 30 or above 35, you have to diet and exercise to get it down and then I can help you. If your thyroid is out of control, you have to get that rock solid steady before you can have surgery here, or any elective surgery. These are all elective surgery procedures. They all carry risk and they’re big operations and are no joke, and my fear is that, with the rising popularity in plastic surgery, people who shouldn’t have surgery will try to get surgery, maybe even lie on their medial history form just to sneak in, and that’s really dangerous.
You mention the phrase “beauty warrior” quite a lot on the show. But for those of us who can’t afford plastic surgery, what tips do you have on how we can be beauty warriors on a budget?
Dr. Miami: Beauty warriors on a budget? Look, plastic surgery is not cheap and the reason it’s not cheap is because there’s a lot of expenses. There’s a big staff, operating room costs, etcetera. My advice is to save up. It’s not worth risking your life to do it for a few thousand dollars less. I think it’s something you need to plan out. If it takes a year or two to save up, to get the time off from work, you should do it right. You are a beauty warrior, it’s like going into battle. You wouldn’t go into a war just half-cocked, right? You train and get your resources together. It’s tough. I like the phrase beauty warrior because it really implies what it is, which is, it’s a tough process and you see that on the show. There are scars, there’s pain. You have to be brave — it takes courage, but at the end of the day, you do feel better about your body. It’s not for everybody but if you’re ready to be a beauty warrior, I can teach you.
If you missed the premiere episode, visit wetv.com to get caught up and to learn more about Dr. Miami.
Rapper 2 Chainz recently stepped into his surgery room for an up close view of a Brazilian butt lift. He even streamed parts of the procedure Thursday on social media as Dr. Miami went to work on a woman who dropped $10k for the procedure. Peep the video below.Â
“Dr. Miami” airs Fridays at 10/9c.
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