Taylor DeBusk, MD - Facial Plastic & Reconstructive Surgeon in Houston, Texas

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 Shay, and you're listening to Meet the Doctor. Welcome to Meet the Doctor Today. My guest is Taylor DeBusk. He's a facial plastic surgeon and he lives in Houston, Texas right now. Good morning, Dr. DeBusk. 

Dr. DeBusk (00:41):
Good morning. Thanks for having me. 

Eva Sheie (00:43):
Why don't you tell us about yourself? That's usually the best place to start. 

Dr. DeBusk (00:47):
Yeah. I am originally from Denton, Texas. I went to LSU for undergrad, go Tigers, stayed down there from med school and then trained kind of all over the country up in Minnesota and California. Now I'm back in Houston, Texas. This is where my wife is from. So I didn't have much of a choice on where we were gonna end up. We have two sons. My oldest son, Liam, is almost three. My youngest son Levi, is uh, almost five months. And we are loving Houston, Texas, the heat and all. 

Eva Sheie (01:22):
Yeah, it's a great place to be. I totally agree. When I moved to Houston for the first time, that was 1998. I remember waiting all year for like the season to change, like the whole year went by. 

Dr. DeBusk (01:34):
Yeah, <laugh>. 

Eva Sheie (01:35):
And it never did. It took so long for me to get used to that. That difference just, 

Dr. DeBusk (01:40):
Well, that's what I, I tell everybody here, there's two seasons hot and really hot. 

Eva Sheie (01:45):
That's right. You forgot muggy. 

Dr. DeBusk (01:47):
Yeah, <laugh>. 

Eva Sheie (01:49):
So Minnesota, what did you like about Minnesota and what didn't you like about Minnesota? 

Dr. DeBusk (01:53):
Well, didn't like as easy, and that's the winter and nobody, uh, you're from Minnesota. Nobody likes the winter up there. Everybody complains about it. It's long, it's cold, it's dark, but as soon as it gets down to 40 degrees, everybody's out in shorts, flip flops, short and tank tops. Oh yeah. And I loved, you know, everybody out there just takes advantage of the good weather. As soon as you know, the sun comes out, everybody's outside, biking, hiking, they're never indoors and they're a resilient bunch up there those  Minnesotans. We, I loved again the seasons. You know, Minnesota is a special place for my family cuz my wife and I got married when we were up there. We had our first son in Minnesota. So it's a, a place we still call home. 

Eva Sheie (02:42):
It's a good place to be and it's a good place to train. So I kind of, um, stalked you online a little bit just to kind of get a feel for what you were doing and where you were. And I, I saw something I don't usually see, which is microvascular reconstruction of the head and neck. So I have kind of two questions there. One is, what even is microvascular reconstruction if you've never heard that before, and then how would you train to learn to do that thing? 

Dr. DeBusk (03:12):
Yeah, so microvascular surgery specifically to the head and neck is we use a lot in head and neck surgery when we're rebuilding defects after our cancer resections. So if you have to remove a large part of, uh, the jaw, you can take the bone and soft tissue from the lower leg along with the artery and vein or the blood vessels and then hook the blood vessels up to those in the neck. So you have vascularized tissue when you're rebuilding the jaw or large defects of the face or oral cavity. There's several different routes of training to establish, um, those skill sets within E N T or head and neck surgery. People don't realize that the large portion of E N T training is, uh, head and neck cancer, both the resection or removal of the cancer as well as the reconstruction. So I spent five years in Minnesota largely just doing head and neck cancer, both cutting it out or removing it as well as reconstructing along with a lot of the facial plastic surgery, both aesthetics as well as reconstructive. 

Eva Sheie (04:19):
Is that mostly an older patient base or did you find yourself taking care of younger people too? 

Dr. DeBusk (04:24):
It's actually, it's a, a combination. Um, I mean I've done microvascular surgery or reconstructive surgery and patients as young as three years old up to, you know, 98 years old. So it's a, it's a broad spectrum cuz there's a lot of tumors in the head and neck that aren't necessarily cancer, but that do need to be removed. So you do, you get a pretty good, well-rounded experience from the, uh, reconstructive standpoint. 

Eva Sheie (04:51):
So this is probably a really dumb question, but when you see microvascular, does that sort of also mean microscope as in you're using a microscope when you're reattaching these tiny blood vessels? 

Dr. DeBusk (05:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. So we use the microscope and we use very, very small suture smaller than that of a, the diameter of a hair to sew the arteries and the veins and the nerves together. I also do facial reanimation surgery or patients that have paralysis of the face, whether that's from Bell's Palsy, from tumor resections from Ramsey Hunt. So a lot of patients that develop either complete paralysis of the face or partial paralysis, there's a lot of different techniques, both minimally invasive and then large microvascular surgery to help give them function of the face again. So there we so nerves together again using microvascular suture. 

Eva Sheie (05:49):
So something like Bell's Palsy, I thought usually went away on its own. Are there people where that doesn't occur? It just sticks around? 

Dr. DeBusk (05:57):
It can. The large portion, the vast majority of patients with Bell's palsy will regain total function of the face. But there is a subset, uh, population of, of those patients that develop either some residual facial paralysis and then as the nerves try to regrow, they, they regrow in an abnormal position. So they get involuntary contraction of some of the muscles of the face. It's called synkinesis. Um, you can use things such as Botox to help give people facial symmetry to relax some of those contracted muscles. And then there's an even smaller subset of Bell's palsy patients that com have complete paralysis of the face. And then we're talking about doing things to rewire some of the nerves to give them their smile or even put or do a microvascular or free tissue transfer to help, uh, regain, uh, total smile function. It's a lot <laugh>, 

Eva Sheie (06:55):
It sounds like a very high tech specialty, you know, when you're taking someone's face apart and putting it back together for them. What kinds of interesting things are happening on that sort of technology horizon in that area? 

Dr. DeBusk (07:12):
Yeah, so facial nerve in general, uh, reanimation or management of, uh, facial asymmetries is, is really kind of the big thing in facial plastic surgery from a reconstructive standpoint. Uh, there's a lot of strides, um, and have been a lot of strides within the past 10 plus years in regaining function. Again, from static things to just make patients' faces look symmetric at rest to dynamic, meaning that you can give them a functioning smile, a lot of research in the, uh, out right now or investigation into really regrowing those nerves to allow, uh, patients to regain the function of the face without having to undergo any major invasive procedure right now, uh, depending on the degree of paralysis, uh, that dictates kind of the invasiveness, but in the future, hopefully we can regain those nerves without having to undergo large surgical procedures. 

Eva Sheie (08:09):
Yeah, I could see how that would be helpful, 

Dr. DeBusk (08:11):
<laugh>. 

Eva Sheie (08:12):
So how does this kind of training do you think, help when you're approaching a cosmetic procedure? 

Dr. DeBusk (08:22):
Yes, and I get that question from patients and a lot. So my head and neck surgery training, whenever we are, you know, taking out cancers, reconstructing faces, you have to have a very fine understanding of the anatomy, uh, of the face, you know, from skin all the way down to the nerves, to the bones of the blood vessels. So when we're doing or looking at somebody's face from an aesthetic or cosmetic standpoint, number one, I, I'm extremely comfortable with the anatomy of the face, uh, given my background and, and number two, when you reconstruct the face, you always have to take into account the cosmesis because you want to make sure that the patient looks as normal and can function in society as they did prior to removal of any sort of facial cancers or anything like that. So as aesthetics has always been a part of my training and my experience now when we go to purely aesthetics, again, my understanding and comfort with uh, all tissue planes of the face, uh, really kinda gives me that advantage of that edge. 

Eva Sheie (09:27):
Yeah, it completely makes sense. You would not just flip a switch one day and say, now I'm gonna make someone's face pretty too. 

Dr. DeBusk (09:36):
Yeah, <laugh>, 

Eva Sheie (09:36):
uh, if you're reconstructing someone's face, you're always doing aesthetics, whether, so it's the reason that changes and not necessarily that the way that you approach it noses are also really complicated and scary. And I think, I mean for patients maybe not for you, how did you train to do rhinoplasty and what was involved in that training? 

Dr. DeBusk (10:02):
Yeah, so as again, my E N T or head and neck surgery background, we were operating on noses from my first day in residency doing septoplasty things on the inside of the nose. So we had a very fundamental understanding of the entire anatomy from a functional standpoint early on in training. Then in our residency, my specific residency up in Minnesota, it's a very high volume facial plastic experience. So we did a lot of functional and cosmetic rhinoplasty as well as cleft lip or palate rhinoplasty. So again, that's a rhinoplasty in kids, you know, two years, one year old all the way up to patients, you know, 80 plus. So we had a very high volume experience in our residency, you know, did probably 200 rhinoplasties and then have done several hundred since then. So my understanding is pretty sound of the nose of the anatomy, uh, and then the ability to manipulate that anatomy to give you that aesthetic or your cosmetic goal. Now that's a whole nother level, which I love and enjoy because you have, number one, you have to know the anatomy and then number two, you have to know how to manipulate the contour, the cartilage to give you that, that desired outcome. 

Eva Sheie (11:21):
Let's say you're just hanging out with your two year old and they do the thing where they, you know, throw their head backwards and smash you right in the nose and then you <laugh> your nose breaks. I don't know. And I actually know someone who this happened to and she, she told me she had to go to the ER and she was laying there in the ER and they said, we're gonna find a plastic surgeon. And she said, stop, I've got my own. And she, she told me she called hers, this is actually in Houston and he came, I don't know if he came over or if he just said, don't worry about it, come see me tomorrow. 

Dr. DeBusk (11:56):
Yeah. 

Eva Sheie (11:57):
Is this something that's ever happened to you? 

Dr. DeBusk (12:00):
Oh yes. Personally, I've been the, uh, recipient of the headbutt <laugh> and I've <laugh> and then I have, uh, yes, several patients that have come in. You know, nasal bone fractures are a very common thing that we see. The beauty is, to be honest, a lot of nasal bone fractures don't need to be managed. Even if you have a pretty severe fracture, a lot of times you don't even notice the millimeter or sub millimeter movement of the bone. A lot of times we intervene on it, mainly if there's a functional issue, uh, because it's hard to tell, especially with a kid hitting the nose and things like that. It's hard to get a severe fracture. Now I do have a pretty extensive history and, and experience in managing facial fractures just in general. So I've seen all kinds of nasal fractures from nasal bones looking like sawdust to kind of hairline fractures. There's a pretty wide array of, of management options. 

Eva Sheie (12:59):
So let's say hypothetically we've been coming to Basu Plastic Surgery for years and now we know you're there and something happens to our nose. We can call the office now and, and you're there to help. 

Dr. DeBusk (13:13):
I would love to help. 

Eva Sheie (13:15):
That's great. 

Dr. DeBusk (13:17):
<laugh>. 

Eva Sheie (13:19):
So we know you can take faces apart and put them back together for people of any age. We know that you are great at noses. What about secondary rhinoplasty surgery? 

Dr. DeBusk (13:32):
Yes, so secondary, you know, we always kind of quote or I quote when I talk to patients that the revision rate after a primary are initial rhinoplasties between 10 to 15%. So one in 10 people will possibly need a revision rhinoplasty. Either they don't like the cosmetic result or they can't breathe well out of the nose. Now when I look at revision rhinoplasty, the main thing that I talk about is the need for extra cartilage or grafting structure pieces to help rebuild and reshape the nose. Cuz typically when patients have their initial rhinoplasty, a lot of the spare parts or the spare cartilage has been removed. So I talk to patients a lot about using, uh, rib, their own rib, depending on the patient's age, uh, on their specific concerns or comorbidities. The rib is a very nice piece of cartilage to use to rebuild the underlying structural framework of the nose, as well as use it for grafting to obtain the, the specific contour that you're looking for. 

Eva Sheie (14:39):
If you've just had a rhinoplasty and, and you are looking at yourself in the mirror and wondering, wow, how long is it gonna take for me to look the way that I want to, how do you kind of set those expectations for recovery? 

Dr. DeBusk (14:53):
Yes, and I've learned this the hard way, that you have to set the expectations early and you hammer it in. And what I mean by that is I tell every patient one week after surgery is when we take the splints off, the cast off and it's gonna be swollen, it's gonna look nothing like what the final product will be. And you may even regret it as soon as we take the cast off because of the expected swelling at one month after surgery, a lot of that initial swelling is gone. And when you're walking down the street, people have no idea you ever had surgery in your face. But when you look in the mirror, you're gonna still say, oh my goodness, my nose is, is extremely swollen. Now at four months after surgery, again, this de depends on the patient's thick skin thickness and things like that, but at four months most of that edema, the swelling is gone and you get a really good idea of what the final product is gonna look like. Now, technically you're not done healing for 12 to 18 months after that initial incision was made. So again, depending on the thickness of the patient's skin, the strength and integrity of the cartilage, there may be little small millimeter changes as your skin kind of contracts down over the 12 to 18 months. But in general, most patients have a very good idea of what the final product will be or look like. At about that four month timeframe. 

Eva Sheie (16:18):
Does the rhinoplasty often help people breathe better? 

Dr. DeBusk (16:22):
Yes, quite often. I do a lot of functional plus cosmetic rhinoplasty. So priority wise for me, number one is always function. You have to be able to breathe out of it. A close second is form or the way the nose looks. If the nose is this beautiful little thing on your face but you can't breathe out of it, you're gonna realize that breathing is your priority. A beautiful nose isn't beautiful unless you can breathe out of it. 

Eva Sheie (16:51):
We talked about your training and where you grew up. You're from Denton, which is Dallas, right? 

Dr. DeBusk (16:56):
Yes ma'am. 

Eva Sheie (16:57):
Do you remember when you knew you wanted to be a doctor? 

Dr. DeBusk (17:02):
You know, that is a question you get along the way through every interview, through the basically medical process, med school, residency, fellowship, jobs. To be honest, you know, I've always wanted to be a surgeon. I, I don't know when it started, but I love working with my, with my hands and I love helping people. But to be honest, choosing to become a surgeon is much more selfish than my desire to help because I just really enjoy operating, I enjoy work with my hands. So I've always known I wanted to be a surgeon, but that instance when I knew I wanted to go to med school, it's just always been there. 

Eva Sheie (17:42):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I asked this question pretty much on every interview and the answers are either like yours, like it was always there, or there's another one which happens all the time too, which is I was doing this other thing and then I, they hit a huge wall of some kind, like some insurmountable blocker and then they immediately pivoted to becoming a surgeon. And so some of those are like, I was a professional ballet dancer and I went skydiving and I broke my back and the next day I applied for medical school. 

Dr. DeBusk (18:19):
Yeah, <laugh>. 

Eva Sheie (18:19):
That was one of 'em. 

Dr. DeBusk (18:20):
Well, that's a better story than mine. 

Eva Sheie (18:22):
I know. It was way more interesting than I always knew. And then yesterday I was talking to someone who said, um, I was gonna be a professional baseball player. And then the day he realized that wasn't gonna pan out, he said, I'm gonna apply to medical school. So it seems like there's a pattern, like there's, there's the doctors who always knew it and then there's the ones who were high achieving in some other thing that abruptly ended and then they just pivoted. 

Dr. DeBusk (18:49):
Well that's, that's interesting. I mean, I played football in college and I remember my first day realizing that I was not nearly as good as the rest of the guys and I had to have a backup plan. So med school is always there and mm-hmm. <affirmative> by playing football. It reaffirmed the fact that I needed to go to med school cuz I didn't have a future in football. That was for 

Eva Sheie (19:12):
Sure pretty self-aware too. If you knew on day one that you weren't 

Dr. DeBusk (19:16):
Oh yeah. Those to be an NFL football player, you have to be a special caliber. 

Eva Sheie (19:22):
Yeah. 

Dr. DeBusk (19:22):
And I definitely realized that I was not there. 

Eva Sheie (19:25):
Well, in Texas football it's not like you can, you're not a big fish in a little pond like this is the pond. 

Dr. DeBusk (19:30):
Yeah. <laugh>

Eva Sheie (19:31):
Are you board certified yet? 

Dr. DeBusk (19:36):
I am.

Eva Sheie (19:37):
You are. Okay. Board certification is often misunderstood by patients, but doctors say it, you know, like I, I'm tall, I live in Houston and I'm board certified. Like we should all know what it means, <laugh>, and luckily I know what it means now, but I like to ask how you, how do you explain to patients what it means and why is it actually important? 

Dr. DeBusk (20:01):
Yeah, so board certification, it basically means that that physician or surgeon has met a certain standard within their specific field. Now there's several different boards. You have a board of surgery, you have Board of plastic surgery, American Board of Facial Plastic Surgery, American Board of Otolaryngology, head and Neck Surgery. Now all these are different groups that ensure that anybody that has gone through specific training has maintained a specific standard and understanding of that field. And I think it's an extremely important that you, um, research your surgeon and understand, number one, their training and credentials and qualifications as well as their board certification. Cuz you're right, I mean you can claim that you have any sort of board certification, but what does that mean? You know, you need to know what board they're certified through and what they're certified to do. 

Eva Sheie (20:58):
Which ones do you have? Just one or multiple? 

Dr. DeBusk (21:01):
I have one through otolaryngology head and neck surgery. And then I've completed, uh, my, the process through facial plastic surgery or the American Board of Facial Plastic Surgery. You have to be in practice for two years before you're allowed to get or obtain that certification. So mine's coming up this year. 

Eva Sheie (21:22):
That's exciting. 

Dr. DeBusk (21:23):
It's a process. 

Eva Sheie (21:25):
It is. By the time you get there, you've already done so much, it probably doesn't seem like, you know, you're just doing what you've always done, <laugh>, you're still going. 

Dr. DeBusk (21:36):
It is. 

Eva Sheie (21:37):
When someone comes to see you for the first time in person, what should they expect from that? 

Dr. DeBusk (21:45):
Yeah, they should expect to get to know me as a surgeon, I always ex introduce myself, explain my background. I talk about my wife and kids. I want them to know me as a person. Every surgical patient I give my cell phone number. Some people say that's crazy, but for me, for patients, a lot of times this is the first major surgery that they've had, especially when it's a cosmetic surgery, you know, it's a little bit more kind of on the line because it's, it is something that's not necessarily needed or required, quote unquote. So it's anxiety provoking for them to go through this process because again, it's, it's a 12 month process from as soon as that incision's made until you're fully healed. So a lot of times they have questions or things and I want to be able to get, be, I want them to be able to get ahold of me as easy as as possible. 

Eva Sheie (22:36):
Aesthetic medicine goes through trends, just like anything that's visual. And I, over the last year or two, maybe have seen this idea of natural come up all the time. I I just wanna look natural, and that word could mean so many different things to so many different people. 

Dr. DeBusk (22:54):
Yes. Agreed. Yeah, and I agree with natural, I mean in my different initiative of natural can be different to somebody else or than somebody else's, just like you said. So I really make sure I understand the patient's desires or goals on that initial consultation because I don't want there to be any ambiguity between my desire to outcome and theirs. So I 

Eva Sheie (23:20):
Do you use any visual tools to help that process? 

Dr. DeBusk (23:23):
I do. I use 3D imaging, uh, software specifically for rhinoplasty because rhinoplasty, again, you know, some millimeter changes can make all the difference or the some millimeter desires are hard to, to articulate for some people. So if you can get a nice 3D image, both of us will be on the same page. Facelifts. I do have 3D imaging that I use. I sometimes it's hard to get that desired outcome on the, on the current technology. But doing a lot of tissue manipulation in clinic, in the mirror and things like that can show you really what sort of goal or what sort of outcome we can achieve. 

Eva Sheie (24:04):
Do you ever run into someone who you just cannot align with their vision and you have to say maybe we're not a good fit? 

Dr. DeBusk (24:12):
Yes, because I don't want to operate on somebody where I don't think that I can give them their desired outcome. Whether that's a reve face our nose, specifically with the nose. I think that you see that a lot more or I personally see that a lot more as a facial plastic surgeon. Patients will be on their third revision rhinoplasty and they still want, they have really thick skin, but they want this tiny little nose. And for me, I, that's not something I can do or give you. And the risks are a lot higher when you're, you know, doing a revision, revision revision. So those I definitely am very weary of and I'm, I I I try to be completely transparent with patients because I, I said this is a year long process and if I operate on you, you and I are kind of stuck together for at least 12 months. 

Eva Sheie (25:05):
Noses and chins, someone described this to me once as, uh, they're, sometimes they're, they have a signature look. And I think one of the things that, you know, not commonly but sometimes happens is you have a nose or a chin that looks like everyone else in your family. And if your idea of what that should look like is either to continue looking like everyone in your family or to look nothing like everyone in your family mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that might not always be the exact same thing as what an aesthetic result may look like, you know, in a magazine. But it, like I would never change my chin even though other people might look at me and say I could do a lot with that chin because mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I look like my grandmother and I look like my cousins and I look like my mother, and I don't wanna not look like them cuz I love them. 

Dr. DeBusk (25:58):
It's part of your identity, you know, and I get that very often, especially with, with humps, dorsal humps or on the, the bridge of the nose. A lot of times people for functional reasons, they wanna straighten the nose, they wanna soften that, that bridge of that hump. But they don't want to completely get rid of it because you're right, their dad has the hump or their mom has the hump, they want to improve the contour a little bit, but they don't want to completely get rid of it. And that's honestly why I love the 3D imaging because we can really pull that down and you can, they can specifically tell me how far they wanna bring down that hump because when somebody walks in and says, take the hump away for me, I understand they're completely different than somebody else that says, I just want to take it a little bit. So there's um, you're right. I mean when we change the nose it can really change the face and you don't want to look like a completely different person. Maybe just a more refined version of yourself. 

Eva Sheie (26:56):
Exactly. Well said. What other procedures do you love to do? 

Dr. DeBusk (27:02):
So rhinoplasty and facelift are really kind of my favorite one that I like a lot and I've been doing a lot more of recently is just the deep neck lift in younger patients, thirties, early forties from where you're not removing a lot of tissue or anything but you're just improving the contour of the neck. And I'm sure you know this or heard this, especially with in the Zoom era, everybody's looking down at their phone or on zoom and realizing, whoa, where is this double chin coming from? So you're starting to see a lot of these younger patients come in and you can do amazing things to the neck with one small incision just for moving a little bit of the, the deeper soft tissue and sewing some things together and really improving the contour. 

Eva Sheie (27:46):
There is a less expensive way to do it though Dr. DeBusk, you just move your webcam up higher <laugh> and point it down at you. 

Dr. DeBusk (27:53):
Yeah. It, hey, you know what, I think you're onto something <laugh>. 

Eva Sheie (27:58):
I've been doing that for years. Another trend is that that buckle fat pad removal procedure that's been flying around this year, all of a sudden everyone knows what it is and is talking about it. We don't have to beat that dead horse. But are there other little tiny procedures that you think have a big impact? 

Dr. DeBusk (28:19):
Yes, I think that like anything, you know, they, these fads come and go cuz years ago, so in my training in Minnesota, uh, Dr. Peter Hilger is, is pretty well known in the facial plastic surgery world. His father was one of the original founders of the American Academy of Facial Plastic Surgery. So with him and his family, I mean he's seen every fluctuation and trend. He's seen everything go and come and go. So he is at, he, he's not a big fan of the buckle fat pad removal. He kind of instilled that in me. My point in, in saying that is that yes, you see these fads, everything kind of fluctuates, but another big thing is the lip lift. And I think that we've all heard of that, seen that apparently, you know, that was something that was desired back in the day. But I think that it does give a good rejuvenated look or appearance in the right upper lip. You know, because as we age, just like gravity affects everything else in the body, it does elongate that upper lip. And I think that a lip lift, which is a pretty minimally invasive procedure, I mean it is removing skin, but something that I do in clinic, it's pretty quick easy procedure that can give pretty good and lasting results. 

Eva Sheie (29:35):
What's the recovery like for that one? 

Dr. DeBusk (29:37):
Yeah, so like anytime we make an incision again, you know that first you're gonna have a lot of swelling, some redness in the incision. I do a sub nasal lip lift so it'll be a little red line right under the contour or the, the shadow of the nose. But again, once you hit kind of that three to four week period, all that initial swelling's gone, that scar's pretty much faded. And given the location of the scar, once you're completely healed it's, it's virtually invisible. 

Eva Sheie (30:04):
Can you do eyelids in the office too? 

Dr. DeBusk (30:07):
Yes. So that's primarily how I do upper eyelids. An upper blepharoplasty is in clinic, takes about 30 minutes operative time. The eyelid skin is extremely thin, so you do anticipate some dramatic swelling the first couple days after surgery, but that's normal again, one week after surgery it's still pretty swollen. And then once you get to that one month timeframe you get pretty dramatic improvement in that initial swelling. But it, the upper eyelids, I mean it's a relatively small procedure of blepharoplasty, but it can make all the difference in the world. Uh, make people look more rejuvenated, awake, less tired. 

Eva Sheie (30:48):
What about the lower eyelids? The eye bags, the dark circles? 

Dr. DeBusk (30:53):
Yes. I do lower blepharoplasty. I'd personally like to do that in the operating room just because it's a little bit more invasive and there's a little bit more involved with manipulating of the fat of the lower eyelids. But we see it a lot. I mean the tear trough filler has become a huge thing. A lot of people are interested in it, A lot of people get it and there's a lot of people that have complications because of it. Cuz your injector has to know where to put the filler, uh, how deep, how much in order to really alleviate or minimize that tear trough. But it's a temporary solution and as you age it only gets worse. But a lower blepharoplasty or manipulative manipulation or repositioning of the fat of the lower eyelid is a permanent solution and it gets rid of, uh, of those tear troughs. 

Eva Sheie (31:42):
So. Okay. Really important question. Cowboys or Texans? 

Dr. DeBusk (31:49):
Oh, Cowboys. Oh, so I know it's a, uh, cuss word down here in Houston, but being originally, you know, from Denton, Texas in the nineties, I mean the Cowboys were, were everything. So I still, even though they still break my heart every season, I still have to pull for, for Jerry's Jerry's team. 

Eva Sheie (32:11):
Okay. I predict a rivalry in the office. 

Dr. DeBusk (32:14):
It's coming. I know it's a big Texans office. 

Eva Sheie (32:17):
Yes it is. <laugh>, 

Dr. DeBusk (32:19):
I may, I may have to keep my mouth shut, I think. 

Eva Sheie (32:21):
<laugh> depends. I mean it sounds like you're not too afraid of controversy. So, you know, if you wanna go there.

Dr. DeBusk (32:29):
I'm a, a bigger LSU fan to be honest. 

Eva Sheie (32:31):
Oh, 

Dr. DeBusk (32:32):
Oh yeah, 

Eva Sheie (32:33):
Yeah. I think you're gonna be okay there cuz you're, they're tigers and Princeton is also the tigers. So you got two tigers. 

Dr. DeBusk (32:41):
Yeah, it's, it, it fits nicely. Mm-hmm. 

Eva Sheie (32:44):
<affirmative> it can be. All right. And if anything, your shared love of football will keep you together and happy for many, many years to come. Obviously most people know surgeons can't do everything by themselves and the team around you is as important as as the surgeon themselves. How do you think about your team and how they are there to support the patients? I know you probably don't know them all yet, but maybe in a general sense. 

Dr. DeBusk (33:13):
Yeah, I mean, I think the team is just as important if not more important than, than my role to be honest with you. Because I mean, they're the ones that are constantly in contact with the patients. They kind of set the expectation before they even meet me and, you know, they're the face of the practice. The team is because they, like I said, they are the ones that are really interacting with the patients, discussing the pre-op, the post-op, seeing them more often than I am. And you can't do it alone. And I've learned that in my first year of practice where, you know, I was doing the majority of, of everything, you know, from contacting price, quotes, everything, photos, all my own, everything. And it's overwhelming and you can't do it all yourself because you will drop the ball somewhere. And I've really learned to appreciate the team and really now understand the importance of the team because they do come first.  

Eva Sheie (34:10):
How do you think they would describe you or at least the team you have now, how, how would they describe you? 

Dr. DeBusk (34:16):
Easygoing. I think that it takes a lot for me to get flustered. I think I'm very relaxed, kind of go with the flow kind of guy. I do have high expectations, uh, from my outcomes and from my patients. But overall, uh, very relaxed, easy to get along with. Joking in the office. I think in the office is not, should not be a sterile place. I think you need to have good relationships with everybody. Very collegial across the board. Cause I like to have fun. I, I want to be in the office. I don't want to, I don't want people to, to want to leave, to look, you know, look at the clock and can't wait to get out. I want people to enjoy being around me and around the team. 

Eva Sheie (34:58):
Is there anything you want listeners to know that we didn't cover yet? 

Dr. DeBusk (35:02):
So I am also a clinical assistant professor at University of Texas Medical Branch, teaching head and neck surgery residents and plastic surgery residents doing a lot of rhinoplasty, skin cancer, reconstruction, trying to develop more of the facial nerve as well in the microvascular department and things like that. But I do love the education. I love interacting with trainees. It's fun, it's enjoyable, can be frustrating, but <laugh>, that's also the fun part. 

Eva Sheie (35:32):
Yeah. Going to Galveston is always frustrating.  

Dr. DeBusk (35:35):
Yeah. <laugh>, 

Eva Sheie (35:38):
Where can we find out more about you? 

Dr. DeBusk (35:41):
Yeah, so DeBusk md.com and then soon my profile and things will also be up on Dr. Basu's website. Uh, and then I have an Instagram, uh, account and it's just Dr. Taylor DeBusk. 

Eva Sheie (35:55):
I will put all of that in the show notes with links. DeBusk is D E B U S K. 

Dr. DeBusk (36:01):
Yes, ma'am. 

Eva Sheie (36:03):
Thank you so much for sharing your stories with us today. 

Dr. DeBusk (36:07):
Yeah, no, I appreciate, uh, appreciate your time. This has been a good experience. 

Eva Sheie (36:15):
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.