Latest / PRS Beyond the Pages: The Plastic Surgery Editors' Podcast / Putting Plastic Surgery into "Warp Drive": Part One with Rod J. Rohrich, MD

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Putting Plastic Surgery into "Warp Drive": Part One with Rod J. Rohrich, MD · PRS Beyond the Pages: The Plastic Surgery Editors' Podcast

• 0:00
  Sam (00:07) Welcome to Beyond the Pages, the PRS Plastic Surgery Editors Podcast from the Journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. In each episode, we speak with leaders in plastic surgery and other thought leaders about their careers, research, and their role in shaping the future of the field and how research impacts patients everywhere. I'm Dr. Samuel Lin, and I'm so pleased to introduce our very first guest who has been a great friend and mentor to me over many years.
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  He certainly needs no introduction, and we are honored to be joined by Dr. Rod Rohrich.
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  He completed his medical education at Baylor, plastic surgery residency at the University of Michigan, fellowships in hand and microsurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital at Harvard and also Oxford as well as Mexico City. He spent the majority of his academic career at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas
• 0:03
  as chairman of the Department of Plastic Surgery for over two decades. He was editor-in-chief of PRS from 2005 to 2021 and headed many initiatives to increase the proportions of levels of evidence and PRS to new journal sections and also evidence-based medicine in resident education and examination. He's been president of every society in plastic surgery and then some, and so we are so pleased to have Dr. Rohrich with us today.
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  His surgical focus, as we all know, is rhinoplasty and aesthetic facial surgery. So Dr. Rohrich from North Dakota to Dallas, Texas, take us back to the
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  beginning. What first sparked your interest in medicine and plastic surgery specifically?
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  Dr Rod Rohrich (01:38) Well thank you, Sam. I you know, I think the biggest spark in my life was, you know, my interest in science. You know, I always loved science and I loved art.
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  And Science drove me to medicine, and art drove me to plastic surgery. And I was very lucky to have some early mentors in science in high school and where I grew up in rural North Dakota, there weren't very many science mentors. But there was one or two and they crystallized and helped crystallize my career and going into medicine. But I think beyond that
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  biggest thing is having mentors, you know, for life and those were my parents, you know, that really drove hard work, honesty, doing the right thing, persevering, and I think delayed gratification because medicine is really by definition delayed gratification, as you and I know. And
• 0:09
  That's a hard thing for people to understand today because everybody wants things now. In this era of AI and social media, we want things now. And medicine is never that way. And it never will be. So, you know, it was just a conjoined effort to get to where I was. But you know, we're lucky, you know, because we we grew up in
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  in a great environment, worked hard, had great mentors, and then life happens.
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  Sam (03:10) Yeah. Thanks so much. So so well said. How
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  has your philosophy of plastic surgery evolved over the course of your career from early training to to now?
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  Dr Rod Rohrich (03:21) Well I think it's evolved from first starting out and wanting to be, you know, the best trained plastic surgeon. That's why I did multiple fellowships.
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  And I loved academics and I loved teaching and I still love teaching. You know, and I think being an academic surgeon, academic plastic surgeon, is really a state of mind, not a state of who and what you are. And you know, we see that in plastic surgery because many of the advances in plastic surgery were not necessarily done by the quote unquote academicians, they were done by innovators in in the private sector. So plastic surgery is really been
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  science and a specialty of innovation. So, you know, it started out in being the best you can be and I still strive to do that every day to educating the next generation and then giving back. And I think, you know, the journal allows you to do that and you as the new editor, you know, are seeing that and I think you have a very powerful influence on the future of, you know, plastic surgery, which is very good. And I'm
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  so happy that you're you're the editor because you have the right mindset, the right focus, and the right skill set and the hard work that it's gonna take to get there. You know, life is you you know, people always say that was an instant success. I remember Joe Rogan,
• 0:17
  Somebody kept saying, you know, Joe Rogan's an instant success. He's got the highest podcasts in the world. And he said, "Yes, it was a 35-year-old instant success to become to become the number one podcaster world." So nothing is instant. But if you persevere, focus, and don't give up, those are the magic triad that really will help you become the best you can be. And somehow
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  that's been forgotten today.
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  Sam (05:13) Yeah, So such wise words and and congratulations to you as well on your career lifetime achievement award at the Association this past spring. So well deserved, of course, and you've influenced
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  Dr Rod Rohrich (05:25) Well thank you.
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  Sam (05:25) generations of plastic surgeons and continue to.
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  Have there been any key career
• 0:23
  moments or turning points you've encountered that have shaped the way you think and practice?
• 0:24
  Dr Rod Rohrich (05:36) You know, I think there's there's been several. I think
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  one was when we became a department of plastic surgery at UT Southwestern, I think it helped to shape how we could design plastic surgery to be autonomous from all of the other specialties, which is really is what it has and should be. I mean everybody came from, you know, general surgery and trauma surgery, but I think that was a a key turning point in allowing us to show what plastic surgery can do and what it can become. And
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  and I think as editor- in-chief of PRS, I think it really helped to pave the way for the new generation of, you know, not only the internet and now with you and AI, because people they don't just read, they want to hear it, they wanna feel it, and they wanna see it. And the journal does that. And I think, you know, you're gonna take it to that next level. And AI is
• 0:27
  totally transformed everything in medicine and it's transforming PRS too, which is in a good way, as you know. So everybody always says, well, the good old days. No, I think the great new days are ahead because I think AI will put PRS and with your help into warp drive, which of course is an old Star Trek term.
• 0:28
  Sam (06:58) Of course,
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  I picked that up, what you put down.