Today at the ASAPS 2014 meeting at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, I live-tweeted my thoughts and some slides from the morning lectures.  Topics included:

• fat grafting to the face, including how to avoid bad results and treatment of related deformities
• incision choices for breast augmentation
• ethics and how to “stay out of trouble” in Plastic Surgery
• the latest hot topics in science, research and development in our specialty

The afternoon took my Patient Coordinator and Office Manager Mary Pasache and I to the exhibit hall, where we met up with some of our favorite vendors and friends:

Catching up with “my guy” Brian Lyle from Rosemont Media, the internet marketing and website development company who helped me create my website, blog, email blasts and more!

Rosemont Media is the San Diego company who helped me achieve my vision for my educational website www.drkarenhorton.com and who makes our email blasts, brochures (Horton SPA and Advanced Breast Reconstruction) and promotional material around the office look so beautiful!  I chose them above all other companies based on their years of experience working specifically with Plastic Surgeons, their honesty, integrity and availability.  I didn’t want my new website to be a “cookie cutter” like so many of my colleagues’, with my voice and personality evident to those who visited it – I believe we have achieved that goal!

Dr. Horton and Mary Pasache with Teresa Catalano, our fabulous Allergan Rep who was educating us about Seri surgical scaffold

Next, we caught up with our Allergan breast implant rep Teresa Catalano, who has seen me through and supported each stage of my practice, from creation to now, 8 years later!  The breast implants I use most commonly for both cosmetic breast cases and reconstructive surgery after breast cancer are Natrelle silicone gel implants, which provide the most natural results in breast enhancement.  We learned about Seri, the surgical scaffold I will be trying in an upcoming abdominal wall reconstruction case.

I attended a second lecture on “Vaginal Plastic Surgery”, which in contrast to Friday’s lecture, actually discussed surgery of the VAGINA in addition to labiaplasty.  This course was appropriately titled.  Interestingly, only two of the attending surgeons in the room addressed “surgery of the vagina” when polled by the speaker (my suspicions confirmed).   I will be addressing this topic in a future post.  See my recent blog post which questions why some call LABIAPLASTY “cosmetic surgery of the vagina”, when it really only addresses the external genitalia (labia minora, labia majora, clitoral hood and mons pubis).

In all, it was a good day at ASAPS!  Tomorrow morning is the finale, which will focus on social media, one of my professional passions!  Stay tuned for a final update…