2024: Another Year of Happiness

December 17^th marked 11 years since this blog has been in existence, but for the first time ever since its creation, I managed to go the entire year without a single post! I've honestly thought about discontinuing this blog and not paying for the domain anymore, but out of all my various social media accounts, I find blogging to be the most therapeutic and writing brings me a ton of joy. Plus, it's crazy to believe that when I stared this blog I was just a premedical student and now I am 4th year Plastic Surgeon in training accomplishing things that I had never even dreamed of.  I originally started writing this post on the day of my actual blogiversary, but as you can see, life has been super busy and I never got around to finishing it. So with that being said, and today being New Year’s Eve, I'm going to use this post to give a recap of 2024 :)

January

During my last post, I was in Orlando, Florida completing my pediatric craniofacial and plastic surgery months. January was a continuation of my Orlando experience with Pediatric Surgery. It was a great month operating on newborns, babies, and children. I was definitely ready to return back home to Miami though. Luckily, my program called a mandatory in-person team building meeting on the last day of the month which also happened to be my 37th birthday :) We also found out that our residency program had recently received full ACGME accreditation (we were brand new when I started), so we celebrated both with cinnamon rolls and our program coordinator also gave me the sweetest birthday sign. My significant other also surprised me with surgical loupes, so it was a great end to an already fantastic month.

February

I was glad to be back home in February, but this was also the month where I tried to stay under the study rock as much as possible and used my free time to prepare for the upcoming plastic surgery in-service exam that we take every March. During the month, I was on a plastic surgery rotation that combined aesthetics, hand, and reconstruction, so it was good to be exposed to everything. I did find time to have a tiny bit of fun that month though and used it to try out the true Miami lifestyle for a night. When I moved here, I thought that nightlife was dead, but I just realized I was doing things too early lol. In February, I decided to see what the hype was about, so on a weekend I wasn't on call, I worked all day Friday, came home around 8pm and went to bed, woke up after midnight, got dressed and made it to the club at 2am and got to see Jeezy perform front in center. I had definitely been missing out!

March

March was a significant month because it was my last time ever having to rotate on General Surgery ever!!!! If you've been reading my blog for a while, then you know I basically completed a General Surgery based intern year. On top of that, the first two years of my plastic surgery residency were very general surgery heavy. It felt so good to know I will never have to remove a gallbladder or appendix again, lol.

As for other March highlights, I was able to attend the Annual Medical Education Conference (AMEC) of the Student National Medical Association (SNMA), and celebrate the SNMA's 60th anniversary. I am proud to have served the organization as its 54th National President (and I was the first osteopathic medical student to ever serve the organization as national president), so it was a joy being back in the conference setting and seeing thriving premedical and medical students. It was also great being able to catch up with old colleagues, and I ended the trip with my first ever cooking class! I now know how to make New Orleans style eggs benedict, pralines,  shrimp etouffee, and crab cakes :) 

As my in-service exam was finally complete and I had room to breathe. I also took some time to hang out with my daughter in March. I'm sure we filmed a random TikTok video on her account that never got shared, but as always, we had great mommy/daughter bonding time. 

April

I started off April operating on a great abdominoplasty case with my attending Dr. Adam Rubinstein. He had an observing student with him who captured some great pictures of me working, so of course I had to include the above one in this post. Since we don't do official rotations with him until our 5th year of residency, it was great getting the chance to work alongside him for a few days in April as I was on the general plastic surgery service and we had enough coverage for me to be able to leave and join him.

Because I was not allowed any PTO for most off the first half of my 3rd year of residency, I was finally able to put in a request for April. I took advantage of the time off by taking a trip with my SO to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic where we stayed at an all-inclusive and had a great time. I probably ate and drank my weight in food, so there's not much I can recap about the trip other than it was amazing.

Lastly April was the month of my daughter's junior prom and she looked absolutely amazing!!!! The picture above is just me being a proud mama, but since a lot you have been following along on this ride since she was in elementary school, I'm sure you can appreciate the growth.

May

I started off the month of May performing my first circumferential body lift, and even better, I hit the milestone of having MY FIRST ACADEMIC BOOK CHAPTER PUBLICATION!!!!! Under the guidance of my wonderful attending Dr. Christopher J. Salgado, I was able to participate in a chapter titled "Aesthetic Male Genital Surgery" in Advances in Cosmetic Surgery. Up until this point, I had published my own book and was included in various publications through my previous research, but I had never had an academic book chapter. This was a major goal for me, and I'm super thankful I was able to accomplish it.

I also took a few more days of PTO in April and spent it on a wonderful Virgin Voyages cruise. I sailed to Turks & Caicos and the Bahamas while enjoying unlimited food and great drinks. It was another great reprieve, and a fantastic end to the month.

June

June came with even more accomplishments as one of my articles discussing gender affirming hormone therapy was published. That article can be read HERE. But we didn't just stop there! I was fortunate enough to have another academic book chapter published under the guidance of my attending Dr. Tarik Husain. This chapter was one that we actually started during my intern year and submitted when I was a 2nd year plastic surgery resident, but the process was soooooo long!!!! I was so happy to finally see it come to fruition. I don't have a free PDF to share, but if you're interested in the book, you can buy it HERE.

Another major highlight of June, was being able to have the first resident clinic patient of my program and operate on my own patient. We performed a mommy makeover that included a breast augmentation, liposuction 360, liposuction of the arms, and an umbilicoplasty. I have one happy patient and it was a great experience having autonomy but with the guidance and direct supervision of my attending to ensure great results. I have so many great before and after pictures too that I received permission to share, but I don't know the full rules on what I am allowed to share under my resident status, so for now you'll have to stay tuned. Since I was very close with the patient, I will say that operating was super scary and also nerve racking because I’m not used to being close with patients or them having constant access to me. It was definitely a lesson learned in trying to avoid that, lol, but then again, I'm happy it was with me :)

July 

I officially became a 4th year Plastic Surgeon in training in July! I am now a more senior resident and with that comes more responsibility and the growing fear (and excitement!) of knowing I'll be on my own in a few years, but I'm loving every moment of it! In July, we welcomed our new interns and we had a great educational/fun night at Top Golf where we learned about wound reconstruction and ended the evening showing off our golfing skills. 

August

August was a super busy service as I was back doing microsurgery, general reconstruction, aesthetics, and gender affirmation surgery. I think we had two phalloplasty procedures and two vaginoplasty procedures just in August alone! One case alone took 16 hours to perform, and I believe I only scrubbed out once or twice to use the bathroom and eat. Although this month was super busy, I loved it because it was both challenging and fun at the same time. Plus, I learned a lot and could really feel and see myself growing as a surgeon.

 

September

September was a continuation of the August service, so it was completely busy as well. The major highlight of the month for me was being invited to attend the annual Osteopathic Medical Education Conference (OMED) as a keynote speaker for the Student Track of the conference. This was HUGE for me because the other keynote speakers for the conference were Montel Williams (one of my favorite 90’s talk show hosts) and Dr. Kevin O’ Connor (longest serving physician to the United States Presidents). I was floored that I would be considered to be a speaker at such a prestigious event, and I loved my time there! Although I was a virtual speaker with my idol Dr. Barbara Ross-Lee at OMED few years back, I had never actually attended in person until this conference. I loved interacting with my fellow DO colleagues and learning new things.

Conference season didn’t end there though as the following weekend I was in San Diego attending the annual Plastic Surgery Meeting (PSTM). It was such an insanely good conference, and I met sooo many amazing stars in the field of plastic surgery. A recap of that would make this post way longer than it should be, but please check out my Instagram post HERE so you can read about why I was so inspired.

 

October

I don’t have much for the month of October, so it was likely very busy, but I did get a chance to kick off the month by speaking to the medical students from the SNMA chapter of the University of Miami School of Medicine. I always love interacting with students, so it was a great experience.

November

November started off immediately in mommy mode as the first day was my daughter's Senior Night at school. She has been involved in band and color guard for years, so it was great  being able to walk the field with her as she was recognized for her accomplishments. I also always love seeing her perform.

I also ended up in Las Vegas at the Allergan Surgical Solutions Symposium where I participated in the breast surgery. There were amazing panels and discussions which included preoperative planning and live patient markings, reimbursement guidelines, managing complications, and even lectures on GLP-1 weight loss medications and how plastic surgeons can adapt to treating these patients. My favorite part of the conference was getting to practice markings on anatomic models and then putting the work in action as I got a chance to perform an augmentation-mastopexy (breast implants with a lift) on an actual human cadaver!

My daughter also turned 18 in November! Yep, I’ve officially been a mommy for eighteen years and I am so incredibly proud of the young woman she is becoming. We celebrated by traveling to New Orleans during her Thanksgiving break where she got a chance to check out Bourbon Street for the first time and be horrified, lol. We also toured a couple of colleges on her list (she currently has quite a few acceptances, and I am one proud mama!). Lastly, We saw Justin Timberlake perform in concert which was her only birthday wish, and through the most random occurrence ever, he said her name twice during the concert. Of course she lost it and started crying tears of happiness, so it was even more beautiful to see so much joy in her.  

December

December has been a whirlwind! Like the others, this month as been super busy and with a lot of interesting cases. Reading through this post now, I’m honestly shocked at how I’ve been able to manage studying, operating, traveling, and everything in between. Right now, I only have the time to write this post because I put in my PTO for the last few days of this month as my next two months will likely be super busy. I truly love what I do though and operating makes me so happy. Plus, my program director recently commented on how much better and faster I’ve gotten in the operating room, and that made me smile.

This month, I finally had the chance to attend the annual Florida Society of Plastic Surgeons Meeting in Palm Beach, Florida and it was a great experience. As always, I learned a lot and the location was beautiful.

As for fun moments this month, we had our residency holiday party, and it was nice being able to spend a fun evening with my colleagues. I actually started writing this post about an hour before the party, and then never got to finish it until now. The day after our holiday party, I had a chance to see Usher perform and it was a great experience. I was originally supposed to see him perform on a Saturday in October which was a lighter month work-wise for me, but because of the hurricane that month, his concert was moved to a Wednesday in December. I debated going because I worked a full day and had another full day the next, but I am glad I went. He is a great performer and it was definitely worth missing a little sleep.

I think that pretty much sums up 2024! The next two months will be spent working hard and studying even harder as I prepare for our annual inservice exam in March. I haven’t quite taken a moment to fully reflect and map out my goals for 2024, but one of our medical students recently gifted me with a beautiful gratitude book, and I plan to write something in it daily. I’ve also decided that I will start taking bigger leaps, being more unapologetic, and truly embracing this beautiful journey in 2025. If you can believe it, since starting residency I’ve really been trying my best to lie low, but playing small just doesn’t cut it for me. I am about to enter into another beautiful era of life, and I want to continue to inspire, shine, and encourage others with my light. So here’s to another year of good vibes, new goals, and growth!

If you’ve managed to read this far, thank you so much for reading and your continued support. I wish you nothing but joy, happiness, and success in 2025 and for years to come 😊