Samuel Lin, MD - Plastic Surgeon in Boston, Massachusetts

Eva Sheie (00:03):
The purpose of this podcast is simple. We want you to get to know your doctor before meeting them in person because you're making a life-changing decision and time is scarce. The more you can learn about who your doctor is before you meet them, the better that first meeting will be. There's no substitute for an in-person appointment, but we hope this comes close. I'm your host, Eva Sheie, and you're listening to Meet the Doctor Today, on Meet the Doctor, my guest is Samuel Lin. He's a plastic surgeon in Boston. Welcome to the podcast.

Dr. Lin (00:38):
Thanks so much, Eva. 

Eva Sheie (00:39):
It's good to see you again. 

Dr. Lin (00:40):
Great to see you again.

Eva Sheie (00:41):
Tell us a little bit about where you practice and what your everyday life looks like during the workday.

Dr. Lin (00:47):
Sure. Great to be here. Sam Lin. As Eva said, I'm in Boston, Massachusetts. I've been there for about 17 years now, hard to believe, and I practice out of an academic medical center. I do a lot of rhinoplasty, both functional, an aesthetic rhinoplasty, facial aesthetics, neck lift, facelift, as well as breast reconstruction and everything else, truncal liposuction, abdominal plasty.

Eva Sheie (01:15):
When you say academic practice, that means that you're training younger surgeons while you're also working with patients?

Dr. Lin (01:21):
Yes, so I'm a program director of our residency training programs and also a fellowship co-director of our aesthetic fellowship.

Eva Sheie (01:33):
That's exciting.

Dr. Lin (01:34):
Yeah, it keeps things interesting and always great to see the next year's trainees and new fresh faces and the opportunity to be able to shape and teach them for the future. They're our future after a while.

Eva Sheie (01:47):
So when you have fellows with you, are they there for a year?

Dr. Lin (01:51):
The fellows are with us for a year and they have trained in plastic surgery in different programs across the country, and so they're really just here with us to really have a more in depth training approach, thought process to what we do In terms of our approach to aesthetic surgery, I partner with three other members who run the fellowship as well. For our residency programs, we have two tracks, one that is out of medical school that is six years in duration and one that is three years that comes after a surgical training program.

Eva Sheie (02:30):
In terms of what this means for patients, how can you maybe explain what the benefits are to patients for seeing plastic surgeons in an academic setting like this.

Dr. Lin (02:41):
Okay, sure. Yeah. I think that patients, when they come to an academic medical center, they probably expect to some degree to see younger people around such as medical students, trainees of different levels, years in training. Of course, they sometimes do ask. We're happy to share that this is a training teaching institution. I have to say though, that for our fellows that are there, they're completely integrated in our practice. They see patients with me. They obviously go to the operating room and help us with our procedures or surgeries. They also then are able to follow them afterwards and see how patients do. So from their educational aspect is beneficial. Also from the patient's standpoint, it actually is great that they can recognize a familiar face, someone who they've seen in the preoperative setting and talk to them a bunch, maybe participated in their surgery, and then of course taking care of them afterwards.

(03:47)
So I think for the fellowships experience, that is always the case on the residents side and our residency training programs, they're spread out more over a course of all of our attending staff at our hospital. So I do cases with them of course, but it's just spread out a little more spending time with other members of our division and they learn all aspects of plastic surgery, not only facial aesthetics and rhinoplasty, but certainly hand surgery, lymphatic surgery, everything else, complex reconstruction. So it's a little more diffuse, but they all get the same experience by the end of the day, of course.

Eva Sheie (04:27):
Those reconstructive patients probably are finding you through other doctors. They're being referred from various places. They're not saying, oh, I need a reconstructive surgeon. I'm going to Google.

Dr. Lin (04:37):
Some are actually. 

Eva Sheie (04:39):
Are they? 

Dr. Lin (04:39):
Yeah, some are. And actually through RealSelf.

Eva Sheie (04:42):
Oh, interesting.

Dr. Lin (04:43):
Yeah, but primarily through RealSelf. It is cosmetic patients, but there is breast reconstruction as a tab that we have images and photos for educational purposes, and they do find, I think all of us through the website, and I think it's just the way of the world these days in terms of being able to provide that information and access to people for their knowledge. So there is a lot of information transfer going on that way.

Eva Sheie (05:11):
One thing I didn't understand about breast reconstruction until recently was that in most big cities, there's one, maybe two real centers for breast cancer care and that the patients are sort of moved into a very coordinated system that takes them through that however long that journey is sometimes 1, 2, 3 years even. And that plastic surgery is just a stop along that way. And is the place where you work is the environment that you're in one of those systems?

Dr. Lin (05:39):
Yeah, it's Boston. There's a lot of physicians around. There are a lot of medical centers around. There's no shortage of course, which is great for patients who are able to get a lot of information from different people, different places, and there's just nothing wrong with that. Of course, they can see different people are going to have different approaches and see what they feel comfortable with. Eventually. I think in Boston there are two, three large systems, a healthcare system. Our system in particular is a 13 hospital system, so it's fairly large. Their system is in town just literally across the street as well, and I believe we're all collegial. Patients go back and forth, and I think overall it's a nice place to practice and have good colleagues around you.

Eva Sheie (06:29):
And so how did the aesthetic patients find you and then choose to come to a place like that versus a smaller?

Dr. Lin (06:36):
Sure. So that's interesting too. The aesthetic patients primarily come by word of mouth or from a referring physician of course, or from just looking online and doing a search and these days with before and afters that are ubiquitous and in learning about people having seen website or platform on RealSelf, I think people feel comfortable with certain, I think aesthetics with different physicians, especially in rhinoplasty where I think people gravitate towards certain people. They maybe identify with their postoperative appearance and the patient pictures that they see, and also just the training background. I think in all just the whole informational package that they are able to glean from that as they do their search. But we all probably end up seeing patients who will do their research and have seen other people or maybe had procedures with someone else. And then I'm thinking about other options as well, and that's fine as well.

Eva Sheie (07:39):
I feel like I have this sense that the internet has really helped a lot in particular with rhinoplasty because before we had websites or I go back that far, can you believe that before we had websites or social media or Instagram, you could really just ask How many rhinoplasties have you done? That was the only way you'd find out the answer to that. But now we have visual representation and we can see how many you've done. Not the whole number, but the number of pictures that you've put out. And I think that's one of the good things that's come out of

Dr. Lin (08:12):
Yeah, that's true. I think reality TV also, and I have to say that initially as a conservative, from a conservative viewpoint, I think that some of what's seen on TV is just a little much for the dinnertime conversation or consumption, but it's become pretty common now, and I think it's been actually interesting for patients to see that in terms of what sometimes the extremes that people go to. And so the whole process seems a little more tempered when we see people because I think there's a little more of a reality check and understanding to that, that they hopefully do realize that plastic surgery isn't all that there's real risks to it. The procedures all don't happen within an hour and there's real recovery time that's built into it. So I think that all of it has been very helpful from an educational standpoint in ways that I didn't really think about initially,

Eva Sheie (09:14):
That's well said. I agree. So along with teaching and practicing, there's really a third component to your work that is a research, is that right?

Dr. Lin (09:25):
Yeah. Good memory Eva.

Eva Sheie (09:28):
Also, I just picked up a copy of PRS and I read through it and saw your name.

Dr. Lin (09:32):
Okay/ Good research too.

Eva Sheie (09:34):
I was walking over there.

Dr. Lin (09:36):
The booth is right over there. Exactly.

Eva Sheie (09:39):
But I did remember that, that you've been dedicated to the research part for a very long time.

Dr. Lin (09:45):
Yeah, yeah. I've been, I think an interesting hybrid as an academic person that's worked with you for a long time in real self and you now, and it's been great. I think that has interwoven the resident experience or research, fellow experience, and of course my personal interest, I wouldn't wouldn't be doing it if I didn't actually like doing it, and I really enjoyed the whole concept of being able to find out something new or bring something to a patient that's new that hasn't been done before is really motivating for me. So it's great to be able to foster these ideas and hopefully bring them to the patient one day soon to help. 

Eva Sheie (10:45):
Are you working on anything exciting?

Dr. Lin (10:47):
Yeah, we've always worked on a lot of different projects from basic science projects to clinical products, outcomes research as a whole. Also in the aesthetic space for sure, always looking at more minimally invasive ways to take care of patients for faster recovery.

Eva Sheie (11:06):
Nobody's against that by the way.

Dr. Lin (11:10):
We're trying.

Eva Sheie (11:12):
When a patient comes to see you for the first time, and I am thinking of an aesthetic patient in particular, what does that experience look like?

Dr. Lin (11:21):
For my practice specifically, we have folks that will take the patient's information and have them come in on their own schedule to see one of our physician assistants or nurse practitioners as an initial visit, and that can be a visit that's telehealth or in person, and it can be purely aesthetic consultation or insurance consultation or both a combination. And that really lays the groundwork for what the procedure is about, what the recovery is like indications for surgery and who's a candidate, and if that's a good fit, of course. Then pretty soon after that we meet with them during the week and as an in-person visit, and then really it's a second, and so there are times that people are just gathering information and so that's perfectly fine to be able to talk to our PAs and PS by the time we meet them in person, many times they're more serious and ready to move forward, and so that's kind of how we've set things up for our practice, which has been great to partner with our advanced practice practitioners. And then at that point, after the visit, it can be a combination of things. There can be surgery that is going to be in the process of scheduling or it could be a follow-up telehealth visit or an in-person visit. So it sort of allows the flexibility of all those different options.

Eva Sheie (12:53):
Then are students or people in various stages of training always present in those parts of the process now?

Dr. Lin (13:00):
Yeah, our fellow is our aesthetic fellow is who sees the patients before and after, for sure. Occasionally we'll have a resident in the area too, seeing patients, sometimes students, we want to always be mindful and respectful of patient's privacy, and so we limit the number of people that also can go in a room for patients. In terms of comfort and privacy.

Eva Sheie (13:28):
It sounds in my mind, I see a lot of people around you. It's a busy place and there certainly are more people than the ones you've even mentioned. There are the coordinators in a standalone aesthetic practice, I would say there's a front desk, so who might we encounter when we come to the practice to see?

Dr. Lin (13:48):
Sure. So we have two administrative coordinators. We'll see either one at the beginning, the front of the office and the front office. We have got a nurse who will take the patient back to the room. We've got our fellow who's going to see the patient. Initially, I'll see the patient of course right afterwards together and that's pretty much our workflow and then we decide where to go from there, in terms of the plan.

Eva Sheie (14:16):
How do you think that those people would describe you?

Dr. Lin (14:19):
The people I work with, I would hope that I actually do know because they tell me they're great, first of all, and I really appreciate all their hard work, and obviously I could not have a practice without them because I literally could not do everything. So I really thank them multiple times a day because I can't not end from our Brooke and Phyllis to our nurses, Molly, Caitlyn, and Jamie, all of  our APPs. I really appreciate their hard work. They would tell me and they do tell me that I probably need to rest more, get some sleep and not work so hard. I think that generally speaking, I think try to spend as much time as I can with the patients. I think they would echo that and try to be responsive. So all these things I think they would echo.

Eva Sheie (15:14):
How do you like to unwind then? When you actually do it?

Dr. Lin (15:18):
Yeah, it's usually

Eva Sheie (15:20):
By writing a journal article.

Dr. Lin (15:21):
Much later in the evening, usually a short night, but getting away from work, being at a meeting and being able to connect with people. Although the meeting's not, I wouldn't say relaxing either because there's just so many people and so many things going on, so that's a different vibe. But meetings are great to be able to connect with everyone of course, and socially, but travel's great whenever we can get away and travel. It does take a couple days to kind of realize where you are and unwind, but we do travel when we can and I think that's a great way to try to lengthen your week. Someone once told me that one day to a conversation about lengthening time, and they remarked that the best way to slow down time was to see something new and travel somewhere you hadn't been before, and I really think that that actually works really well. You don't realize it when you've been to someplace. Of course, travel can be stressful as well, but when you go to a new place and soak that in and try to get yourself warmed and be where you need to be, time seems to have slowed down and a lot's happening just a period of a short day and you don't even realize it.

Eva Sheie (16:39):
That's really good advice. Someone once told me if you sleep one hour less every night in two weeks, you'd have an extra day.

Dr. Lin (16:47):
That's true too. I'm not sure I would advocate that, but lots of things about that.

Eva Sheie (16:55):
At the time this advice was given to me. I was in high school and so I was probably sleeping a lot at that time.

Dr. Lin (17:02):
I do think we need our sleep. Sleep is for sure very important, and you can't get those hours back for sure. If you have a late night or even with travel, it's obviously hard to get used to the new surroundings and get fully restful night, but it's not like you can store hours of sleep at this point. I don't think I ever will be able to, but yeah, sleep's important.

Eva Sheie (17:29):
What do you do to take care of yourself?

Dr. Lin (17:31):
Yeah, on that note, I think I try to get sleep as regular amounts of sleep, although dependence with the night and work schedules and everything, the sort of unpredictability can be there. It's important. Health is number one, right? So we have to take care of ourselves and self-care is easy to actually forget about and not prioritize, but no one's getting any younger and we got to try our best. Yeah, we do. You're the youngest year you'll ever be, right?

Eva Sheie (18:06):
All the time.

Dr. Lin (18:07):
All the time.

Eva Sheie (18:08):
So if someone's listening today and they want to come see you for a consultation or reach out and find out more, where should they go? Find you online?

Dr. Lin (18:15):
Sure. Our website is lin plastic surgery.com. Boston, Massachusetts. Office number is 6 1 7 6 3 2 7 8 2 7.

Eva Sheie (18:27):
Are you on Instagram?

Dr. Lin (18:29):
Yes, at Dr. Samuel Lin.

Eva Sheie (18:34):
I'll make sure we put that all in the show notes.

Dr. Lin (18:36):
Great.

Eva Sheie (18:37):
Thank you Dr. Lin. It's so good to see you.

Dr. Lin (18:39):
Thank you so much, Eva. Great to see you.

Eva Sheie (18:43):
If you are considering making an appointment or are on your way to meet this doctor, be sure to let them know you heard them on the Meet the Doctor podcast. Check the show notes for links including the doctor's website and Instagram to learn more. Are you a doctor or do you know a doctor who'd like to be on the Meet the Doctor podcast? Book your free recording session at Meet the doctor podcast.com. Meet the Doctor is Made with Love in Austin, Texas and is a production of The Axis, T-H-E-A-X-I-S.io.