Dallas Buchanan, MD - Plastic Surgeon in Tampa, Florida

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. Welcome back to Meet the Doctor. My guest today is Dallas Buchanan and he's a plastic surgeon in Tampa, Florida. Welcome to the podcast.

Dr. Buchanan (00:40):
Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Eva Sheie (00:43):
I love the name of your practice. It's Vivify, it's not a word you hear very often, especially in plastic surgery branding. Can you, maybe my first question should be, how did you come up with that? What, what made that word resonate with you?

Dr. Buchanan (00:56):
Um, yeah, one, one of the things that we were trying to come to terms with is what we wanted our practice to be when we started it here in Tampa. And we wanted to do something about, you know, giving patients a new life, giving them, uh, sort of re-imagination and giving people a chance to start over. And so we came up with the, our logo concept, which was kind of a phoenix wing and vivify as a word that means to give life to or uh, reinvent or whatever. So that's kind of how we came up with the V logo and the name and all the things that kind of came with it. So it kinda all came together.

Eva Sheie (01:26):
Do you find that you approach life that way outside of work too?

Dr. Buchanan (01:30):
A little bit. You, one of the things about life and work for me is if you, if you never reimagine yourself and never challenge yourself and, uh, you'll never really grow. So, you know, one of the things that we're always challenging ourselves to do here is try new things, step out of the box a little bit, do things a little bit different, and uh, you know, try to reinvent yourself every once in a while.

Eva Sheie (01:50):
I like it. It's fitting. Let's go back in time a little bit. I know training is important. There are things about it that are important to patients, and so will you take us through how you got here, sort of through the eyes of what patients need to know.

Dr. Buchanan (02:08):
Yeah. In terms of training. Sure. Undergrad, you know, if it's pretty standard for everybody for your undergrad degree. And then medical schools another four years after that. And then I did, uh, a full general surgery residency. So rather than like an integrated plastics residency, I did a full five years of general surgery residency in Birmingham, Alabama. And then after that I did an additional three year plastics fellowship at Temple University in Philadelphia. So in terms of training for a plastic surgeon, you know, it's four years of undergrad, four years of medical school, and at least six years of residency after that. So most of us are, you know, in our thirties by the time we finish and finally start practicing. So the training is a lot. Um, and I think that's important for patients to know that all the things that we have to go through. And then, you know, even after that, once you're done with training and you start your job, you know, written exams for boards and then oral exams boards that come a year after you've finished. So you gotta be out training, collecting cases to pass along to the American Board of Plastic Surgery to even sit for the oral exams. So just, uh, you know, tons of hoops to jump through to get, you know, where you're going.

Eva Sheie (03:13):
How did that general surgery background help you? How does it help you today?

Dr. Buchanan (03:18):
Yeah. For me it's important. I think one of the things is when I interviewed for, uh, plastic surgery training programs, I interviewed at some of the integrated programs that were, you know, three and three years total of six. And for me, I just decided to go with general surgery. And I think looking back on it, it was super helpful for me, not necessarily from like a technical standpoint, you know, I don't, I don't really ever need to know or remember how to take out a gallbladder. But one of the things that I think was really important for me was personal growth and sort of leadership. Because by the time you're a fourth and even fifth year general surgery resident, you're a chief, I was the chief resident my, in my fifth year. And, um, you, you learn you're not necessarily doing the surgeries anymore, but you're managing people and managing patients and, and it's just a lot of responsibility in growing up when you're a baby resident, your second or third year, you get to always ask somebody above you, Hey, is this the right thing?

(04:06)
Am I doing this right or am I gonna mess this up? And you always have somebody to float something to when you're the chief, the buck stops there and you've gotta make the call and, and be held responsible for that decision, you know? So I think it came with a lot of personal growth so that by the time I got to my plastics residency and then certainly out in practice I had had that extra two or three years or whatever of just, you know, management and decision making and just maturity. I think that was super helpful for me.

Eva Sheie (04:33):
I think confidence is certainly one of the things that comes from that experience, and that is what we all look for in our surgeon. We certainly don't wanna see somebody who's not confident in what they're doing or who's working for them either because you're more than just one person in the practice, you're, you have a team.

Dr. Buchanan (04:52):
Absolutely.

Eva Sheie (04:53):
It's a great place for me to ask you <laugh> about your team.

Dr. Buchanan (04:55):
Sure.

Eva Sheie (04:55):
Who, who works with you every day.

Dr. Buchanan (04:57):
I feel like our crew just grows and grows exponentially every, uh, six months. When I started this practice, it was me, I had a medical assistant and I had a front office person, so it was me and two other people. And now we're a staff of, I think 10 last time I checked. So I'm lucky enough to actually work with my wife Michelle Buchanan, who's a, uh, nurse practitioner. And uh, she does all the non-surgical stuff on the med spa side. So she does all the lasers and injectables and that kind of stuff, sort of noninvasive stuff. Uh, we have a great team that comes with us, Denise, our office manager. We have two patient care coordinators, Jess and Gia. We have two, um, medical assistants, Ashley, who's getting ready to apply to medical school actually. And Alex, we have our practice coordinator, Marley, our front office lady, Dee Dee, and Kristen is our surgical assistant as well. It's important, you know, a staff like that. I'm lucky enough to have, like I said, to work with my wife and work with a great staff and it's a big part of what you do. You can't do what you do unless you have the support around you. So I think, you know, I'm lucky to have a great staff to work with.

Eva Sheie (06:02):
How did you meet your wife?

Dr. Buchanan (06:04):
Uh, we actually met in general surgery residency, so I was an intern and uh, I was lucky enough to be, uh, my first rotation right outta medical school. So my first rotation in general surgery when I was an intern was, um, neurosurgery, neurotrauma. And she was an ICU nurse in the ICU, so she always paged me to help her, like do the dirty work, like change bed linens and stuff. And so I was getting abused by the nurses and she was one of 'em. So you, you know, you fall in love with that.

Eva Sheie (06:30):
She was paging you to change the

Dr. Buchanan (06:32):
Oh yeah. They abused me terribly. Yeah, it's, you could get away with anything. They abuse the interns as much as you want.

Eva Sheie (06:39):
They do say that the nurses are really in charge.

Dr. Buchanan (06:41):
They are, they are <laugh>. I can't tell you a number of times when I was an intern on call and the nurse calls you in the middle of the night and says, you know, patient Joe Blow or whatever is having these problems. Like, what, what are your orders? What do you wanna do? And my answer was usually, well, what would, what would you do? What do you think would be best at this point? And then I'll take that under consideration and then that sounds good. We'll do that. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Eva Sheie (07:03):
<laugh>.

Dr. Buchanan (07:04):
So, you know, there's nothing like being a baby doctor right outta medical school and having a nurse there with like 30 years of experience, you know, in the middle of the night. It's like invaluable <laugh>.

Eva Sheie (07:15):
So you said you did your fellowship at Temple, but this was during your general surgery. Remind me where that was?

Dr. Buchanan (07:22):
Uh, general surgery was in Birmingham, Alabama.

Eva Sheie (07:24):
So you went from there to Philly. And then how did you get from Philly to Tampa?

Dr. Buchanan (07:30):
Through way of Spokane, Washington, actually. So, um, when I finished my fellowship in Temple, I took a job right outta training there in, uh, Spokane, Washington, doing sort of a combination of, uh, cosmetic plastic surgery and also reconstruction. Had a fairly busy reconstruction practice there. I did hand surgery, I did breast cancer, reconstruction, wound care, all kinds of stuff. And then I was there for four years, uh, small practice, me and one other doctor. Um, and as that four year deal kind of tapered down, my practice was becoming more and more cosmetic and breast recon and I kinda came to this question of, you know, what do I want to do with the next phase in my career? And we loved Spokane. We could have easily stayed there and built a practice, but I knew that I always wanted to open my own shop. You know, we were talking at the beginning of the episode about the name of the practice and all that stuff, and I, I just had a unique way that I wanted to do things and do things a little bit different and have a different flare to the practice to create a different feel for the patients.

(08:22)
And so I knew I wanted to kind of do my own thing rather than be under somebody else's wing. And so my wife and I sat down and talked about it and I said, we've got the whole, you know, United States to pick from. We can go anywhere, but wherever we go has to be like an all in kind of deal. Like we can't go start a practice and pick up four years later and move somewhere else. So we kind of shopped all around and did a big nerdy search and looked at all these numbers and demographics and all this stuff and landed in Tampa and we just can't be happier with where we've, where we've landed. It's fantastic here.

Eva Sheie (08:50):
Yeah, it's pretty fun.

Dr. Buchanan (08:52):
Yeah. I came here, they won a Super Bowl, some Stanley Cups. I'd like to think I had a large part in that.

Eva Sheie (08:57):
Oh, I'm sure you did. <laugh>. You've had quite a journey to get where you are and you've worked so hard. What is it that patients can expect from you when they come to see you for the first time?

Dr. Buchanan (09:12):
You know, I think one of the things in developing the practice the way we wanted to do it here is kind of the vivify model for us as kind of a concierge or a boutique approach. We really focus on quality more than quantity. There's so many places, whether it's a practice or a med spa or whatever that you know, is really just concentrating on turning people over, getting people in and out and, and focusing on quantity. And we really, when we started from the very beginning, it was more about, uh, a quality approach or we take our time with patients. We don't, there's no cookie cutter approaches to anything. It's not like everybody gets the same thing when they come in here with the same complaint. We really take time to sit down and listen to patients. I spend probably at least an hour with every new patient that I see and just listening to them, listening to their complaints and, and listening to their goals and trying to formulate, you know, a custom approach for them.

(10:03)
Maybe that's surgery, maybe it's not. Maybe it's non-surgical things and you know, to kind of meet their goals and listen to where they want to be. And then I think the last thing that we do really well here is honesty. The saying is, you know, if you're a hammer, everything's a nail. And we don't do that. You know, if, if you're a great candidate for a treatment we don't have or we don't offer, I'm happy to tell you that and I'm happy to send you down the street to somebody who has it. If you're not a good candidate for the surgery you came in for, I'm happy to tell you that you know, I'm not the surgeon for you, just not a good candidate. I don't think you're gonna be happy with the results. So, you know, we try to be really honest and have integrity so that when patients are ready for something, they'll come back to us and we establish that kind of long-term relationship with people.

Eva Sheie (10:45):
I think the hammer nail example is, always really apt. And even when you only do surgery and have no non-surgical treatments, that happens a lot. And vice versa, when you're just a med spa without a surgeon, everything looks like it can be treated non-surgically. How often do you send people to the med spa? Or how often do they send people back to you?

Dr. Buchanan (11:09):
It happens all the time. I mean, before my wife actually, you know, she joined the practice a couple years into opening the practice. She was doing primary care and doing her own thing. So I was doing all the injectables and kind of funneling people back and forth. Um, and then my surgical practice got busy enough, I just didn't have time to do that anymore and she kind of wanted to get involved in everything. So she joined the practice and um, you know, we do float things back and forth and I think that's, it's nice, you know, if you go to a med spa and all they have is Botox and injectables and maybe a laser, you know, an eyelid's a good example. You know, patients will put so much filler under their eyelids and just gets these scary results and these, you know, migrated fillers and things just get crazy.

(11:47)
And my wife, and I'm sure a lot of the great injectors out there tell people, you know, Hey, you could do fillers, but a much better solution, you can go have surgery one time for a modest amount of investment and have a fantastic result that lasts you like 10 or 15 years and you're done. Rather than having to come in here every year and do the syringe of filler and you know, all the things that can come with it. I mean, some people are good candidates in that for some people aren't, but if all you have is filler, guess what they're getting? They're getting filler.

Eva Sheie (12:15):
That surgery, you're talking about eyelid surgery is one of the most underrated and most impactful cosmetic surgeries there is. And I think people are always surprised at, in the grand scheme of things how easy it is.

Dr. Buchanan (12:27):
Yeah, it is. And I think, you know, the funny thing for me was that when I talked to patients about filler, kind of going back to the honesty thing, when I was doing all my own injectables, I would tell people upfront, like, if they came from me for a consult for injectables, I would say, I'm, I'm happy to talk to you about all this stuff, but upfront I am a horrible injectable filler salesman. Because there may be some areas where you are gonna do much better with like fat grafting or surgery or things that are gonna cost you maybe the cost of like two or three vials of filler, two or three syringes of filler and it's gonna be a great result. It's gonna last you 10 or 15 years. I'm not gonna make as much money off of those treatments or whatever long term, but I'd rather you just be happy and have a great result and we can, you know, be friends and that's all.

Eva Sheie (13:08):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, your wife worked with you before you told us she was your boss when you were,

Dr. Buchanan (13:15):
She still is. Don't worry. <laugh>.

Eva Sheie (13:17):
Yeah. Oh, she's still the boss.

Dr. Buchanan (13:19):
Yeah.

Eva Sheie (13:19):
Did this time around, did, were there any surprises that you guys ran into working together?

Dr. Buchanan (13:25):
There's always surprises. <laugh>. Uh, one of the things that, you know, one of the things that has been interesting in terms of, uh, medicine and what we do as providers, my wife and I are very, she's very good at what she does. She was an excellent nurse. She's an excellent injector. She's very intelligent. I mean, and we spend a lot of our time and effort and energy in our patients and making sure that we give them the best results and the best outcomes and we worry about 'em and she worries about her patients. And when you run your own business and you own your own practice, that bleeds over into your personal life. So I will say that, um, one of the big surprises for us both, whether bad or good, I don't know, it depends on the day I guess, but we eat live, breathe, Vivify Plastic Surgery.

(14:06)
It's just part of every day, every weekend, every night. You know, we're walking our dogs at night talking about work, talking about the office, talking about our patients. I just had a patient yesterday I saw for, she's like a year out from a neck lift and I said, man, I think you're almost a year out. And she said, yeah, I am a year out because you guys, you and your wife came and saw me post-op on Memorial Day. It was a holiday and your office was closed and you guys came in and saw me in the office. And I was like, yeah, that, that sounds like us. That's probably true.

Eva Sheie (14:32):
That's pretty neat. Yeah. When you do take a break from work, what do you guys like to do?

Dr. Buchanan (14:37):
We like to travel. I mean, we, we had a period there for a while where, when we first moved and then Covid and all that stuff, we had a period I think for like four or five years where we never even took a week of vacation. So like a full week of vacation. But when we do get time, we like to travel. My wife and I, we don't have any kids, but we're like, I guess she would call us crazy dog people. So we have three dogs of our own and we're currently have a foster dog right now as well. So we're big into like animal rescue and foster care. And we, uh, us personally and our business, we support a lot of the animal rescues and the s pca a and um, humane society and stuff here. And that's a big passion of ours, uh, is, uh, animals and dogs.

Eva Sheie (15:16):
What kind of dogs do you have?

Dr. Buchanan (15:18):
I have two Bernese mountain dogs that were both rescues a boy and a girl. They're actually brother and sister. And the boy Dresden is blind, so he was born blind and um, and that's how he ended up in foster care with his sister. And so we actually fostered three of them, the whole litter of puppies, all three of them. We took 'em all three as a foster and ended up keeping two of them. And then the other third one got adopted out to another family. And then the third dog we took in as a foster, cuz the rescue called us and said, Hey, we got this litter, like seven or eight puppies and we need, can you take one if there's more leftover? And we said, yeah, sure, we don't need a dog, but we'll give one a home if they need it. So we showed up and I think all but one or two of the dogs got taken and we like got the leftovers and that's Goose and he stayed around forever. So, so we have Dresden in Berlin and Goose. And then right now Zeus is our foster dog and I think he may have found his forever home. He's got a trial coming up this weekend, so hopefully we've got him a place to go cuz he's awesome.

Eva Sheie (16:13):
Is it hard to let them go?

Dr. Buchanan (16:16):
Well, so far, I mean, it's funny, since we started doing the rescue thing, we, I told my wife, uh, we are at a 75% foster fail rate. So we love fostering, it's something new we've gotten into. We're big animal people, but we're not great at letting them go so far. So we kept three, got one to go, kept the other two and then kept the third one. So I guess Zeus will up our, you know, if he finds a home this weekend, he'll up our quota and we'd be doing better. We need to get better at letting them go and, and, uh, rehoming them.

Eva Sheie (16:44):
I wish you luck with that.

Dr. Buchanan (16:45):
Yeah, we're suckers. I know.

Eva Sheie (16:47):
<laugh>, Let's go back to travel for a second.

Dr. Buchanan (16:50):
Sure.

Eva Sheie (16:51):
What's one place that you'll never go again? And then also what's a place that you will absolutely go again?

Dr. Buchanan (16:59):
Ooh, great question. I'll start with the place that I would absolutely go again and that would probably be Japan. We went there several years ago and it was so out of the box in terms of travel, just the culture there is so different from what you're used to. It's just a lovely culture, amazing people, crazy food, you know, all those things that are just so far out of the box to what we in our culture are so used to. Uh, so that's definitely a place I'll go to again. And, and in terms of places I would never go again. I don't know. I, you know, honestly, even vacations that aren't the best, like just the fact that you get out and go and do something and get outta your, outta your rut for a while and do something new. I guess maybe if there was something I wouldn't do again, it's like a cruise maybe I've done a couple cruises and they're okay, but it's not really my style. It's not adventurous enough for me. <laugh>

Eva Sheie (17:47):
Do you have any trips planned?

Dr. Buchanan (17:49):
Um, yeah, we're actually coming up for our anniversary in July. We're going to Medellin Columbia. So going to South America for a little trip.

Eva Sheie (17:56):
That is a little more adventurous than a cruise.

Dr. Buchanan (17:59):
Yeah. Yeah. We like, we like to get out there and get a little crazy.

Eva Sheie (18:02):
That sounds amazing. Do you listen to podcasts?

Dr. Buchanan (18:06):
All the time. That's like all I listen to when I'm driving anymore.

Eva Sheie (18:10):
Do you, have you heard All the Hacks? That one?

Dr. Buchanan (18:13):
hm-mmm, negative.

Eva Sheie (18:13):
Oh, I bet you'd really like it. He is an, uh, entrepreneur but also a big traveler and so a lot of his episodes are specific to countries or

Dr. Buchanan (18:24):
Oh yeah.

Eva Sheie (18:24):
Cities. And I know for a fact that he did a Japan one, but

Dr. Buchanan (18:28):
Oh cool.

Eva Sheie (18:28):
He's really good at like, giving you all the tips for both saving money, but also just having a great trip.

Dr. Buchanan (18:36):
Oh, cool. Yeah. I'll have to check that out.

Eva Sheie (18:38):
Life too. I almost never miss it. He's so good.

Dr. Buchanan (18:41):
There's so many great like podcasts now. It's like you could sit around and listen to it all day and never catch up. <laugh>, it's like so many good, good ones out there.

Eva Sheie (18:49):
Yes. I think I'm in the right business.

Dr. Buchanan (18:50):
Yeah, right?

Eva Sheie (18:52):
Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot to learn and there's so much freedom in podcasting because there's no radio breaks and there's no rules and yeah, it's really appealing for a lot of people, both listeners and podcasters.

Dr. Buchanan (19:05):
Yeah, for sure.

Eva Sheie (19:07):
If someone is interested in coming to see you, how should they find you online?

Dr. Buchanan (19:11):
Yeah. Uh, you can certainly find us on, um, social media. So, uh, Vivify Plastic Surgery or Vivify Med Spa. We're on Instagram. Uh, I think we're, you know, a bunch of followers on there that post before and afters and content and pictures of dogs, stuff like that. So, yeah. And then, um, you can also check out our website. We just actually recently launched a new website, vivify ps.com. V I V I F Y ps.com. Check us out there.

Eva Sheie (19:39):
Thank you for sharing so much of yourself with us today. It was a pleasure getting to know you.

Dr. Buchanan (19:44):
My pleasure. Thanks.

Eva Sheie (19:49):
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.