Larry Weinstein, MD - Plastic Surgeon in Chester, New Jersey

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 on the podcast today is Larry Weinstein and he is a plastic surgeon based in Chester, New Jersey. So welcome Dr. Weinstein.

Dr. Weinstein (00:42):
Hi Eva. How are you?

Eva Sheie (00:43):
Great. Where is Chester?

Dr. Weinstein (00:45):
Chester is a little bit west of Morristown, just west of Mendham, east of Long Valley and Hackettstown, south of Newton and north of Somerville or Far Hills. It's a beautiful town, small town, and it's beautiful this time of year in the autumn with the changing leaves and we have the US equestrian team and a lot of golf courses. We have plenty of free parking in my parking lot and I have my own surgical center private.

Eva Sheie (01:19):
Are you the only plastic surgeon in Chester?

Dr. Weinstein (01:21):
Yes, I'm the only one in my office as well, and I do all the surgery and fillers and Botox myself.

Eva Sheie (01:29):
And you answer the phone yourself too?

Dr. Weinstein (01:31):
On a rare occasion? On a rare occasion, but I have women who are working for me for 34 years,

Eva Sheie (01:38):
Uh-huh, they're like family.

Dr. Weinstein (01:38):
30 years, 27 years. Yeah, they like family and they treat our patients like family also.

Eva Sheie (01:45):
So tell me more about them. What are their names and what are they like?

Dr. Weinstein (01:50):
Well, Veronica is a zany person who is very lovable and she has three children and she's very receptionist now, but she's a trained nurse as well. But she likes being a receptionist and talking to patients more than nursing, but she's a very capable nurse as well. And I have Maria who does all my collections. She's Sicilian. So you don't mess with her. <laugh>

Eva Sheie (02:20):
No, I suppose you don't. So the Sicilian, you don't want to mess with her. And then is there anybody else?

Dr. Weinstein (02:26):
She's a very sweet woman. Yeah, don't get me wrong, but I can't talk to people about money and she handles that aspect in my office and I really appreciate what she does. And then there's Liz, who's with me for 34 years, who does my bookkeeping and keeps me, keeps the business running.

Eva Sheie (02:45):
And so have you been in Chester this whole time?

Dr. Weinstein (02:48):
The entire time? 35 years.

Eva Sheie (02:50):
Okay. So take us back in time a little bit. Where were you before Chester? You came out of training, did you come out of a group? What did you do?

Dr. Weinstein (02:58):
So I was in training in New York City at the State University of New York, Brooklyn Kings County Downstate Methodist Hospital. And I trained with some of the best surgeons in New York and also had training at Columbia and Cornell University and came out into private practice, a very capable surgeon. And my first patients were local to people who had accidents, so I took care of next thing I know their entire family was coming to me because I had some successful outcomes, thank God. And I had a partner after I was in practice for five years who was very capable and I focused on aesthetic surgery from that point on in my practice. And I do mostly face and neck lifts, breast augmentation and lipo sculpture. And I was one of the first people to embrace Botox and have been doing it from the inception of Botox availability and have even spoken about the use of Botox in New York City for other plastic surgeons. Also, I've spoken at local plastic surgery meetings, national plastic surgery meetings and international plastic surgery meetings on my unique zif face neck lift procedure that I've honed over 30 years and very minimal downtime and maximum outcome, but certainly no one can guarantee results. But with delicate hands and experience, outcomes are arm usually very good, thank God.

Eva Sheie (04:35):
Now why is it called the Z lift?

Dr. Weinstein (04:37):
Because it involves an internal Z invercation of the SMAS or deep plane. In other words, there are a fascia underneath the skin, which should be elevated for a face or neck lift. There is a muscle in the neck called platysma And if we elevate that platysma muscle with an invercation or SMAS or deep plane, we then get a more long lasting result and less of a problem with those platysma bands in the neck. And we get a nice clean look, but not a strange look. The most important thing to me is to have someone look relaxed and refreshed and rejuvenated and not to have a strange look. One of the biggest fear patients have for a facelift is that they might come out looking strange. I've seen strange facelifts and people come to me to try to fix that and certain things I can't fix and I don't accept and will not do.

(05:34)
So on one hand, I've had patients who are in the eighties who wanted further facelift and a little lipid tuck can be done for these older women who have jowls or have obtuse angles to the neck. And there are also a younger women who sometimes lose a lot of weight suddenly from cancer or after childbirth, and all of a sudden they look like older ladies when they're in their thirties and all the filler in the world is not going to fix it. But a little simple Z lift is going to give 'em the zip that they deserve.

Eva Sheie (06:10):
Does this kind of facelift hold up for a very long time, is not something that has to be redone later or?

Dr. Weinstein (06:17):
Not necessarily. I mean, most people in my practice are one and done. They have it once in their lifetime and they're done. There are other patients who I have who are more in the livelihood of practice or business and they want to look young and they want to be looked refreshed. And I have accountants, doctors, lawyers, who come in every four months for their Botox. Every three months we have a new daxiify, which in the last six to nine months, which I've recently used on myself, and I love it and I love the result it has for my patients. Now, in terms of facelifts, your specific question was does it have to be redone? And I've had patients over 30 years who have had three facelifts or brow lifts or eyelids. So different times in people's lives, they notice things in the aging process that they want to fix.

(07:10)
And if it's fixable, I'll do it. I had a patient in just yesterday who was asking me about having her eyelids done and she's 80 years old, and I looked at her eyes, there is no extra skin. I cannot make it any better than it is. And although she's thinking about this thing as being a problem for her, it's not a problem. It's just her skin texture is not the best. So we did a fractionated laser for her to tighten her skin a little bit, and I prescribed the product for her to help us to be as refreshed as possible. I mean, there's limitations to what we can do, and if surgery's not going to help somebody, I'm not going to even talk about it. I don't want to take people's money for something that's not going to help them.

Eva Sheie (07:48):
How have you approached the sort of changing technology over the decades? You have certainly a long view of having been doing this for 34 years in the same place with the same people.

Dr. Weinstein (07:59):
I try to embrace every new technology. I check out every new technology, but I am not going to experiment on my patients. I'll experiment on myself before I'll experiment on a patient. It's like CoolSculpting. I tried out Coolsculpting, I put it on one side of my tummy and I saw what the results were. I actually had a paradoxical effect. It actually increased the fat on that side of my tummy.

Eva Sheie (08:21):
Oh wow.

Dr. Weinstein (08:22):
Not a lot. But it was, and I've talked to the people who utilize Coolsculpting a lot, and they said, yes, that does happen more often in men than women. Little did I know that that would be the case. However, lipo sculpting, liposuction is a very effective technique. When I remove fat cells from somebody, they're gone. They're not coming back. I mean, if you gain weight, you can gain it, some place else. But once I've removed the fat from someplace, there is no way it can come back. That's the thing I like about the permanence of Lipos, and I've been doing that for over 35 years.

Eva Sheie (08:54):
And do you also use fat for rejuvenation in the face?

Dr. Weinstein (08:57):
Okay, so I've been doing fat grafting for 37 years, and there's no question that fat is healthy in certain places and locations and in limited amount. When you try to do too much of it, I think it causes a problem and it resorbs. Now I see a woman that are so into being physically fit and exercising. So if you are a man or a woman who's exercising vigorously every day, if I take those fat cells and move 'em someplace, the chances are you're going to burn them out. They need time in order to gain blood vessels and gain the support and nutrition that they need. So if you are exercising vigorously on a regular basis, fat grafting is really not for you. It's not going to work. It's just going to dissolve really quickly. At best fat grafting, only about 50% of it stays, and I've been using tried and should techniques of fat grafting and I like to do it in a limited fashion for limited locations as an additive to the Z lift. I also use fillers. Like the fillers I like is Voluma. Voluma lasts up to two years to be used in the cheeks. I use the Juvederm or RHAs and the nasal labial folds. I use it in the jowl region in the chin or in the mandibular region. And there's a new product that can help rejuvenate the skin a little bit, which I'm trying out. It just came out just last month was approved so that as new technologies come and evolve, I

Eva Sheie (10:21):
Oh, the Skinvive? Is that what you're taling about?

Dr. Weinstein (10:23):
Yes, I have it in my office.

Eva Sheie (10:24):
Did you do it to yourself?

Dr. Weinstein (10:25):
No, I didn't. My face looks, I have good skin. I'm very lucky I don't go on the sun that much. And I use sunscreen. I have a broad rim hat that I wear when I play golf and my friends wear these caps and now they're having little problems with their ears from skin cancers and stuff. I think it's important to protect your skin. It's only one envelope we're going to have. You're not going to get another one.

Eva Sheie (10:50):
If someone's coming to see you for the first time for a consultation or for any reason, what can they expect from that?

Dr. Weinstein (10:58):
They can expect a doctor who's going to listen to them and hear about what bothers them. The most important thing in my consultation is focusing on what the patient is concerned about. Subsequent to that, I'm going to focus in on a full examination, either the side of the face or the body, and I will examine the face in terms of precautions, in terms of the bony aspects and the skin envelope and the muscle envelope. And I will recommend to them what can be fixed and what can't. I will point out things to them if they're amenable to it, if they don't want to hear about it, I am not going to pick on somebody. The other thing is when I do a body consultation, I want to examine the entire body. I want to examine the chest, the abdomen, the waist and the hips, and I want that to be proportional.

(11:53)
If someone's coming to me for a breast augmentation or a breast reduction, I'm going to talk to them about proportions. I'm going to measure them, and we're going to talk about how we can make that body be more proportional and more acceptable to them in terms of what they wear. Because it's about how garments fit you and how you present yourself and how you feel about yourself. I think ultimately, I'm not going to talk about any surgical procedures with somebody if I don't feel that they're going to feel better about themselves when I'm done with what we're doing.

Eva Sheie (12:27):
Do you ever find that what people want and what you think they should do or don't always line up?

Dr. Weinstein (12:34):
Yeah, that's a big, a big, I mean, I had a dentist one time who came in, he wanted liposuction in his stomach, and sure he would've been a good candidate for liposuction in his stomach, but he had a problem with atrial fibrillation and he was on anticoagulants. So I said, if you were my brother, I wouldn't do liposuction. Why don't you just go on a diet? Weight Watchers is probably one of the best methods you could use for losing weight, and that's what I recommend to you. And he said, no, my cardiologist told me I could go ahead. He will take me off the anticoagulants. Okay. I said, but then what's your risk of having a blood clot from your heart to your brain and you're a dentist, you have life to live. That's more important than having a little liposuction. And I said, if you were my brother, I wouldn't do it. So he didn't.

Eva Sheie (13:21):
Was he upset with you?

Dr. Weinstein (13:22):
Oh yeah.

Eva Sheie (13:22):
Yeah. Was he the local dentist?

Dr. Weinstein (13:25):
He was like the next couple towns over.

Eva Sheie (13:27):
Okay.

Dr. Weinstein (13:28):
But I've operated on a local dentist, but I can't tell you which one.

Eva Sheie (13:34):
It's funny. In a small town, I can't imagine how often you probably know everyone everywhere you go.

Dr. Weinstein (13:41):
Well, I mean, the Mayor has been in to see me. I've helped her out with different issues. During the pandemic, my office was open for local lacerations and hand injuries. That was the only thing I was able to do it during the pandemic. But now we're open for business. Thank God

Eva Sheie (14:00):
Yeah.

Dr. Weinstein (14:00):
People are vaccinated. The calvary came in with the vaccines. Not everybody's gotten vaccinated, but that's okay. I think we've developed enough immunity to the problems that we've been dealing with, and thank God we're in a better state of things.

Eva Sheie (14:12):
Yeah. So when you're out at the grocery store, do you just pretend you don't know people until they come up to you?

Dr. Weinstein (14:21):
Exactly.

Eva Sheie (14:21):
Yeah,

Dr. Weinstein (14:22):
But some people, they're just, I'm in the hospital. People come over and hug me in the grocery store. It happens as well.

Eva Sheie (14:31):
Oh, it's a terrible problem you have.

Dr. Weinstein (14:32):
Well, look, you never have enough hugs in life.

Eva Sheie (14:36):
It's true. It's true.

Dr. Weinstein (14:38):
My Aunt Molly gave the best hugs.

Eva Sheie (14:42):
Where did you grow up?

Dr. Weinstein (14:43):
I grew up in Brooklyn.

Eva Sheie (14:44):
Oh, okay. I can hear that. How did you decide that you were going to go to medical school? Is there a story there?

Dr. Weinstein (14:52):
There's a story there. Well, you know what? Probably the best story I have is how I found my office in Chester. I went out fishing with a good friend of mine and his son, and we had the two boys. They were about four years old. We went fishing, we caught fish, we cooked the fish, we camped out. And on the way home, I passed the office in Chester Woods Professional Park, and it was a new complex. It was award-winning complex for the architecture. I had won an award for some of my research from the Plastic Surgery Society. So I had an epiphany. They won an award. I won an award. I'm going to open my office here in Chester, and I've been here 35 years happily, and I still go fishing. And my son and I have a very good relationship as well as my children and grandchildren.

Eva Sheie (15:38):
Tell me more about your family.

Dr. Weinstein (15:40):
My son is a filmmaker. He was involved in a very interesting film called Flying on One Engine about a Dr. Sharadkumar Dicksheet who went to India for six months a year doing surgery for children. And it was a beautiful film about him. And I also went, I've gone probably 25 times to India at different locations to do surgeries for children. And I was with Dr. Dicksheet the day before he passed, and I tried to bring his spirit every year to India. I'll be going there in January this year to do surgery for children, cleft lips, cleft noses, and bring his spirit there to help people of poor people have been here. They're so cool. But I love the effects I have on patients' lives in Chester. It gives me no greater pleasure to see the confidence patients have when they leave my office several weeks after a surgery.

(16:38)
It's just very heartwarming and I love to see their families. I mean, I've had three sisters that came for facelifts. I've had three sisters that have come from breast augmentations. I've had generationals, where a mother, a grandmother had breast augmentation, the daughter had breast augmentation, and the granddaughter now has come. So I love the fact that people, I've earned the trust from people to get the results that they expect. Obviously, you can't guarantee anything, and on a rare occasion things will go wrong, but I'm always there for patients no matter what happens, to make sure that they do well.

Eva Sheie (17:20):
And I am not going to force you into early retirement, but how much longer are you going to work?

Dr. Weinstein (17:26):
I see myself practicing for at least another five years.

Eva Sheie (17:30):
And then more fishing.

Dr. Weinstein (17:32):
Well, there's only so much time I can go fishing and play golf. There's a certain amount of love for my craft. My brain is still working. My hands are still working very well, and my eyes are still great. So as long as I have those three things, I'm going to continue.

Eva Sheie (17:49):
Well, they're lucky to have you there in Chester.

Dr. Weinstein (17:52):
Thank you so much, Eva. It's really been a pleasure talking to you.

Eva Sheie (17:55):
If we want to find out more about you, where can we find you online?

Dr. Weinstein (17:59):
You can find me at www.doc Weinstein, DOC weinstein.com. And you can email me directly at LW Plastics LWPLASTICS @aol.com.

Eva Sheie (18:13):
Thank you, Dr. Weinstein. It was a pleasure getting to know you.

Dr. Weinstein (18:16):
Thank you.

Eva Sheie (18:20):
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