Stuart Linder, M.D. (who blogs as “Dr. Body”) and Robert Kotler, M.D. (“Dr. Face”) are two board-certified Beverly Hills cosmetic plastic surgeons who recently became inventors too.

Plastic surgeons work with the same tools on the same sections of the human anatomy, day in, day out, year after year.

Is it any wonder those surgeons often tinker and design better mousetraps and ways to do things?

Doctors Face and Body came into the ranks of inventors by coming up with some new garments and devices to make plastic surgery more comfortable on patients.

Doctors Face and Body jointly belong to the following medical organizations:

• American Medical Association
• American Board of Plastic Surgery
• The American Academy of Facial Plastic Surgery and Reconstructive Surgery

Look at some of Dr. Body’s breast revision before and after pictures.

Here are some before and after pictures of nose job revisions performed by Dr. Face.

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Dr. Face (Dr. Kotler): Congratulations, doctor. I see the Linder bra is now on the market and available for consumers. Just how did you come up with the idea?

Dr. Body (Dr. Linder): After placing somewhere around 10,000 breast implants over the last 13 years and closely listening to those same patients, I saw a need for a new bra, especially one for women who had just undergone breast surgery.

Dr. Face: What makes the Linder Bra different from others?

Dr. Body: Most bras are only concerned with aesthetics, and not comfort. The Linder bra has adjustable panels under the arms and can allow for another two inches around the chest. Plus, it slims down back, or bra, fat that women just hate. It also creates cleavage by naturally lifting the breasts.

Dr. Face: It sounds like it could also serve as a sports bra.

Dr. Body: Correct! All women are different and each actually needs a custom fit – which this bra can be, it is so changeable. The Linder Bra even breathes well and prevents sweat buildup. It’s also convenient—a front panel has a zipper that makes it easy to slip on and off.  (Read more about the breast surgeon’s bra.)

Dr. Face: We’ve also done a little tinkering.

Dr. Body: For facial surgery?

Dr. Face: Yes, for nose surgery to be exact. Nose surgery to improve appearance, help breathing and relieve sinus problems is not particularly painful after surgery.  However, one item that has not won any patients awards is a technique known as nasal packing. The surgeon packs the entire interior of the nose with a variety of cotton-like or gauze material for up to five days after surgery. That also means no breathing through the nose. Results? Dry mouth and even some anxiety and claustrophobia. One patient said it was like drowning for five days; another side it was like having a clothes pin on the nose for days. The packing is medically wise but patient unpopular.

Dr. Body: Sure, it keeps the tissues in place and perhaps deliver a little medication.

Dr. Face:  Correct. But one recent patient left our office during a pre-surgery consultation after he found out the procedure – which he really needed for normal breathing – required nasal packing.

Dr. Body: He was having none of it?

Dr. Face: None! And after that, I got to thinking. There must be a way to do both – pack the nose and also allow for packing.

Dr. Body: So what did you come up with?

Dr. Face: It’s so simple; I’m surprised I didn’t think of it years ago. It’s the same principle as artists use when they make a life mask. They put some hollow tubes in the subject’s nose to allow for breathing before covering the face with plaster.

Dr. Body: Oh, I get it. You lay the tubes down and then insert the packing around the tubes.

Dr. Face: Correct, again! (Read more about the rhinoplasty tubes.)

Dr. Body: Know of any other plastic surgeon inventors?

Dr. Face: Yes, one that comes to mind is plastic surgeon Elliot Jacobs, M.D., one of our Park Avenue colleagues. He invented some very effective liposuction tools for gynecomastia surgery. Gynecomastia is when men have actual, dense breast tissue that usually cannot be liposuctioned. Most of the time, an incision is made to remove the breast tissue.

Dr. Body: How does the tool work?

Dr. Face: It’s a liposuction tool with a sharpen tip. The surgeon pushes the tool through the dense, fibrous breast tissue and then on the backstroke, a sharp aperture shaves off some of the tissue and sucks into the liposuction system. Going back and forth through the breast tissue many times, speeds up the task. The tool actually works like a Danish cheese slicer. (Read more about the liposuction tool.)

A doctor's comforting hand

Both the eminent Beverly Hills board-certified plastic surgeon Stuart Linder, M.D. (Dr. Body) and and the equally eminent Beverly Hills board-certified facial plastic surgeon Robert Kotler, M.D. (who blogs as Dr. Face) rely heavily on the sense of touch to produce rejuvenations that delight patients.

Often mentioned are the many extra years of training – four to seven years after medical school — required to become a board-certified cosmetic plastic surgeon.

Part of that education comes through hands-on experience that teaches a surgeon’s fingers and hands to walk their way around the human body, guided by the sense of touch.

Jointly, Doctors Face and Body belong to the following medical organizations, including:The American Academy of Facial Plastic Surgery and Reconstructive Surgery; the American Board of Plastic Surgery and The American Medical Association.

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Dr. Body (Dr. Linder:) I was thinking about the sense of touch yesterday while doing some liposuction. In liposuction, a plastic surgeon uses a long suction tool, known as a cannula, inserted through a very small incision in fatty areas. And the only way I know exactly how deep I am in the body is by the way the cannula feels in my hand. I can’t actually see inside the body. And there are three levels, or planes, within two inches under the skin where I remove fat.

Dr. Face (Dr. Kotler:) Can you tell if you are no longer thrusting the tool through fat?

Dr. Body:  Absolutely! It’s the sense of touch that lets me know I have left a fatty area and am approaching muscles with the tool. In fact, one of the dangers of liposuction in untrained hands is puncturing an internal organ with that long tool.

Dr. Face: So if you read that a physician trained in, say, radiology, is offering liposuction to the public after learning the technique in a weekend course, how do you react?

Dr. Body: My hair stands on end! The basic thought in my mind is “Yikes!”

Dr. Face:  With expert plastic surgery professors as your guide, how long did it take to learn it and then feel confident offering to your patients?

Dr. Body: A good six months to learn the technique and a couple more years to offer the procedure with confidence – and also to know when NOT to do it.

Dr. Face: In my area of plastic surgery – facial surgery – surgeons must often lift the skin from the underlying facial and neck muscles. That’s done over the cheekbone, jaw and neck regions. It must be done very diligently and carefully because vital nerves and blood vessels are just underneath.

Dr. Body: Is there an instrument that tells you when enough is enough?

Dr. Face:  Not exactly. After years of watching masters and doing basic general surgery, a facial plastic surgeon uses his or her thumb and forefinger to feel the skin’s thickness to gauge the level of dissection.

Dr. Body: What about the nose? You can’t lift all of that skin, can you?

Dr. Face: Again, the sense of touch tells you. The skin must be lifted from bone and cartilage, the skeleton, to modify the basic shape of the nose. In some nasal procedures, the bones of the bridge of the nose must be realigned while cartilage may need to be trimmed.

Dr. Body: Do you mean broken?

Dr. Face: Yes. And that is also done with thumb and forefinger which first feel the precise location. The other critical part is being able to visualize all the tiny and intricate structures of the nose in your mind. Again, that comes after years of training and experience.

Dr. Body: Breast augmentations and breast revisions are somewhat like that, too. No patient wants a large scar on her breast so we make the incision only as long as necessary and then rely on the sense of touch to know how much we can stretch the incision without tearing it. Then, we use our fingers to work the breast implant into the pocket and feel when it is positioned properly.

Of course, that incision must be a little larger for a silicone breast implant. We use a surgical tool to help with that but just the right amount of force must be applied. Just a tad too much and you may have an unhappy patient.

Dr. Face: Right! The last person we want to have a “Yikes!” moment is a patient!