Behind the Scenes from a Student’s Perspective at OCPS

My name is Vanna Wu and I am a 3rd year PA student at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston. I have been fortunate enough to have one of my elective rotations here at Orange County Plastic Surgery in Newport Beach. First of all, I would like to thank the many patients we have encountered who were gracious enough to allow us to sit in on the consultations and procedures.

During my time here, I have worked alongside another student, Brandon Arnold, from Baylor University, Texas. It has been an incredible experience these past few weeks at OCPS. Dr. Bunkis has graciously taken medical students, PA students, pre-med students and even fully-trained physicians under his wing throughout the years and teaches us invaluable medical knowledge not found in any textbooks. We are able to see patients in the office from their very first consultation, to pre-op and post-op visits. He educates his patients thoroughly as well as his students on what the procedures are and how they are done. During these appointments, he encourages the students to practice hands-on procedures including Beauty injections and filler injections, laser hair removal, chemical peels, and pelleting. Under his instruction, we learn how to confidently perform these treatments to the patients’ satisfaction.

We also have the opportunity to assist in surgeries and see first-hand where the magic happens. He takes the time during surgeries to demonstrate techniques and important anatomical structures for the various procedures he does. To follow through with the transformation from beginning to end and to see how beyond happy his patients are with the results has been extremely rewarding. Dr. Bunkis’ love for teaching is very apparent and we are appreciative of the extra time he takes to educate us. Dr. Compoginis joined the practice recently and he too has generously included us in many of his consults and procedures. It is always beneficial to work with different providers to maximize our learning experience here. Lastly, the staff has been more than welcoming to the new students rotating every few months.

Jo, Katie and Tati are always more than willing to answer any of our questions and to teach us some of the office end of running a practice. Overall, OCPS is a fantastic practice not only for its patients but also for the students. I would highly recommend this site to any of my peers.

Thank you for the kind words from our PA student, Vanna, above. It is our pleasure to help train these eager young students and I too am grateful to our patients for so graciously allowing the students to participate in their care. One such patient we saw recently was the 60 year old female pictured below who came back in for a follow up after a facelift and blepharoplasty (eyelid tuck) more than a year ago. She was very pleased with the results of her surgery.

Like many patients, she was surprised that no one she knew commented on her appearance nor noticed that she had had surgery. But that is our expectation going into facial rejuvenation surgery. This topic came up during my interview yesterday on the Plastic Surgery Experts program as well. When we consider what causes a face to look aged, it is the sagging of the SMAS (fascial layer covering of the facial muscles that allows sutures to hold the “lift” in place) and platysma muscle layers under our facial and neck skin. This is not a functional muscle so in every human being, the muscle sags with age to create jowling and neck laxity. During youth, we expect facial fullness in the area of our cheek bones.

With the sag of the muscle layer, fullness shifts to the jowl areas and neck, giving the face a pear or A-shape. Lifting this muscle layer during a facelift restores the youthful V-shaped face with fullness in the cheek area and tightens the neck. When done properly, the face will resume its own appearance from 15 or 20 years earlier, before the sagging started. If you just look like you did a few years earlier, the average person who knows you well will not notice that you have had your face lifted. A facelift does not alter facial texture – if wrinkling is an issue, a resurfacing with a laser or chemical peel will be required to restore a youthful look.

And at the same time as a facelift, we frequently address issues such as protruding ears, weak chins, eyelid bags, upper lid hooding or brow ptosis. What distorts the face during a facelift procedure is an excessive tightening of the skin, giving the patient an unnatural appearance, the so-called “wind-tunnel“ look – and that is something we will not do at Orange County Plastic Surgery or Salisbury Plastic Surgery!

60 year old female before and more than a year after Dr. Bunkis’ Natural A to V lift and a blepharoplasty (actual patient of Dr. Bunkis)

If you want to see if you can have any part of your body improved, contact us for a consultation:

For CA, please call 949-888-9700 or visit www.orangecountyplasticsurgery.com
Or for MA location, call 508-755-4825 or visit www.salisburyps.com
You can write to
Dr. Compoginis at Contact Us Form
Dr. Bunkis at Contact Us Form
or Dr. Ekstrom at mds@salisburyps.com