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 is 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 to Meet the Doctor. My guest today is Dr. David Levens. He's a plastic surgeon in Miami, Florida. Still in Miami, or you're not in Miami.

Actually, Coral Springs.

Coral Springs is north of here.

Everyone thinks it's Coral Gables because that's, uh, the older place and right outside of Miami, but we're about an hour north.

Wonderful. Okay. So and you're on the west side or the east side?

It's uh, it's about 15 miles west of the ocean. Yeah, it's outside of Fort Lauderdale.

Okay. Thank you for the geography.

No problem.

Tell us about yourself.

Well, I'm a plastic surgeon and I've been in practice for 34 years, and I, uh, started my practice in 1989 with my wife as my office manager. I grew up in New York, in Massachusetts. Went to MIT undergraduate for college and then Columbia Medical School. Then I did my residency at, um, Montefiore Albert Einstein in the Bronx, General surgery in plastic surgery. I did a hand surgery fellowship in Los Angeles and then we decided to come back to the East coast where our families were. And we, me and my wife, who we, uh, married in residency, we decided to, uh, move to Florida, much to the dismay of my parents who wanted me to stay in Massachusetts. And, uh, we've been here ever since. Have a nice family, two children and, uh, private practice.

Did you just say to your mom, uh, at least I'm on the East Coast and didn't stay in Los Angeles?

Well, yes, she liked that idea, but she was really not very happy about me not coming to Massachusetts. But she did come and visit. She's passed now, but she came to visit us a lot and I think she appreciated us being closer than Los Angeles for sure.

The weather's certainly better down here.

Well, there's, it's, it's another day in paradise here. I mean, we have our hurricanes, we have more warning and, uh, yeah, it's, it's great. I, I thrive on sunshine.

I could not agree more wholeheartedly with that statement. So you work with your wife every day? And you have for 34 years. What is that like?

It's interesting because some people say, I would never be able to work with my spouse. Other people say yes, and I find it to be great. She's, uh, a great companion. We know when I get home and I'm in a bad mood, she knows why. Uh, usually it's not because of her and she understands that something didn't go well and I can count on her. She's my best friend. But I think that she's very sweet and very, and she gets along with the staff. The staff gets along with her. So I think it's a great compliment for the staff and it's a great compliment for me.

Are there specific procedures that you're known for?

I do a lot of breast surgery, so I do breast augmentation, breast lift, breast reduction, augmentation and lift. And lately there have been a lot more patients having explantation as people are aware. There seems to be a lot of awareness of potential problems with implants. And uh, what I tell most patients is that it's a very loud and vocal minority of women because it's still an excellent option for breast enhancement, breast augmentation. But all of our practices have seen more patients, uh, wanting to have their implants removed for various reasons. So I, I do that surgery as well.

Do you think maybe there's also just an element of age involved in that?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and my age as well. So I've been practice for 34 years and it's a, it's a great blessing to see patients come back 10 or 15 or 20 years later. I love to see, with the long-term follow up, it's very humbling, but age and gravity and time and pregnancies can change things. And then implants do have a shelf life and, um, it's not just 10 years, hopefully it's 15 or 20 years, but they're not lifetime devices. So it is important for patients to follow up and for various reasons, patients get to a certain age, maybe 40, 50, 60, and they say, I don't really want them anymore. I don't need them. But it is funny that every once in a while you'll have a 60 or 70 year old woman that says, of course they want my implants back again. So it's, uh, it's very individual.

(04:29)
But yes. Um, I think that, uh, you know, larger implants were big in the past and now they've kind of, uh, size trend has been down. You hear at the meetings, you always hear geographic things. In fact, I was just in the meeting and they were talking about, uh, implants in New York City versus in California, Texas, and then in Florida. And one of the presenters was saying, "Oh, I just saw everyone out here. Forget it, they're just huge". And so there's this presumption that because we're in Florida, everyone has to have large implants, but it's not the case at all.

<laugh>. That's, that's very true. I, I hear patients saying a lot these days, I just wanna look natural. Natural is not something that you can define or quantify.

It is absolutely an individual aspect and I try to spend a lot of time with patients. Sizing is very important. And so we do a lot of sizing with, uh, photos and sizers and just trying to get to know the patient to see what they're looking for. Mostly natural or slightly fake or very fake. My practice is generally, uh, on the natural side. I, I don't, uh, I don't have a lot of patients that are exotic dancers or that kind of thing. So it's usually just moderate size and modest, uh, appearance, modest enhancement.

Does your patient base change across the year as people kind of come and go from Florida?

We're in a, uh, fairly stable community. Not that much in terms of, I mean, it's aging, but uh, it, it's been relatively stable.

Yeah. You know, here and Arizona and I, I was thinking about it because people from Minnesota and we were just talking about Wisconsin and going back and forth, cuz it's the best of both worlds when, when you're here in the summer and it's hot and sticky and gross and it rains every day, you know, it might be nice to be in Wisconsin in July.

It's great to be able to do that. And for people that are able to afford being in two different places, it's a wonderful thing. Absolutely. And I, we, we pretty much get the same weather all the time here in Florida, so it, it's not the best place to be in the summer right now it's still good, it's nice and cool, but in the, uh, in the mid middle part of the summer, it's nice to be able to travel.

So you told us, uh, about your education, which was mostly on the east coast, but where did you grow up?

I grew up in, um, uh, Queens, New York, in Queens. And then we lived in the suburbs in Roslyn, New York, and then we moved up to Massachusetts. My family, my parents are from Boston, so they had strong roots and they wanted to get back to Massachusetts, so I moved up there for high school, then college, then back to New York for medical school and training.

And was there ever, do you remember when you realized you wanted to be a doctor?

Yes. Well, the, the way it goes, the story I usually say is that for Jewish families, my son, the doctor, uh, so pretty much from day one I was destined. I had to be a doctor. I don't care what kind of doctor you are. Actually, I, I'm the first doctor in the family, a lot of engineers and teachers, but I did love biology and I had a high school biology teacher that was great. She was very supportive, very encouraging to encourage me to go into medicine and, and then I, uh, just kept pursuing that through college.

And so you went to MIT knowing you were eventually gonna go to medical school?

Uh, I definitely went to MIT knowing that I was interested in medical school and actually only about 10% of the, uh, MIT population, um, is considered pre-med. So, um, it's a kind of an unusual track, but it's great science and great school. I do, uh, alumni interviews now, which is a lot of fun. I get to meet the kids that are coming out of high school and I just, my, my kids tell me all the time, they don't understand how I got into MIT because these kids are such brainiacs. They're doing all kinds of Nobel research and, uh, it's very competitive. I think it used to be about one in nine, not one in nine, uh, one in 11 get in, but now it's down to like, you know, one in 16 or something. It's a really small number of, uh, applicants that, that get accepted there.

Yeah. Wow. I just am trying to imagine what MIT was like, that was what, the early eighties?

Uh, when I was there, I was there from 74 to 78. In fact, I have a 45th reunion, so I graduated 78, so I have a 45th fraternity reunion coming up this summer. We're going to meet 25 of us from my class, a class before, a class after. We're gonna meet in Park City, Utah, actually this summer. And, uh, we have a, an Airbnb that we're gonna spend a weekend playing some golf and hiking and biking and that kind of thing should be nice. I think I'm too old for that, but it's, uh, it's, it's gonna be great.

What else do you like to do when you're not at work?

I like to golf. Um, I like to cycle. I like to exercise and listen to classical music. Read. I try to read as much as possible. Um, I, I was never a big reader, but, um, I am enjoying reading. Uh, I was buying books on I-books all the time. And now my wife is, she's very frugal and smart. That's why it's good that she's in my practice. She turned me onto an app called Libby, which is literally, I don't know, it's a public library service, so the books are free. Did you ever hear that <laugh>? It's called L I B B Y.

I've got it on my kindle, but it's difficult to use.

So it's free. And then, uh, you don't have access to all the books right away. You have to kind of like reserve them because the popular books are, are not there, but it's free. And then you have a week or two to read the book and it's great because otherwise I spend all this money on that I could be saving on, uh, free books. <laugh> No one goes to the library anymore, so it's a great way to use, uh, digital library.

I know I read every single CJ Box, uh, Joe Picket book last year and I bought them all for whatever, between $9.99 and $12.99.

Right. And they're just sitting on the shelf and you don't need them anymore? Well, you can donate them.

There's just on my Kindle

Oh, oh, there. Oh yeah.

But still, yeah, like if I could have done that for free, that would have been,

There you go. See you learned something new, not just plastic surgery related. You're, you're welcome.

Thank you Linda.

Absolutely.

So 34 years, how much longer do you think you're gonna practice?

I think a couple more years. We have a lease that's up in two years. I don't own my building and the last lease was a five year lease and before that they were 10 year leases. I am not signing a five year lease. Fortunately, things are going well and so I hope that financially in another couple years we can slow down. I'm actually starting to do a little bit of medical directorship of med spas, um, which will provide a little bit of, uh, income. And then I've been teaching, but not really getting just a stipend. So I might try to teach at some local, uh, physician's assistant schools part-time or maybe even medical school and just as a clinical preceptor type, um, position. So hopefully that'll help. And uh, you know, you hear about people saying that they retire and then they shrivel up. I don't wanna shrivel up <laugh>. It would be nice to have a little bit of income and something to do. So that's, that's the plan.

Yeah. It's important to stay busy.

Absolutely.

Is there anything that you would like patients to know about you that we haven't, haven't covered?

Well, they tell me that I'm very understanding, compassionate, uh, generous, honest, to a fault. And patience seem to like me despite, uh, me not always liking myself. So I, uh, I think that that's, it comes out in the reviews and the patients, uh, bringing their family members and that kind of thing. So it's, it, it's, uh, they, they, I guess humble too a little bit. I mean, you know, sometimes you hear about certain professions, not just plastic surgeons being like all about themselves and boast faults. That's, that's not really me.

Maybe self-deprecating,

Exactly. <laugh>. Exactly.

If someone is interested in finding you, reaching out to you, where should they go?

Well, I have a very active Instagram presence and I do all my social media myself. So it's at David J Levens. That was my email I was giving you. So it's David J Levens

On Instagram?

On Instagram, yes. And then the website, dr levens.com. And then we're in Coral Springs, Florida, like I said, about an hour north of Miami. And, uh, our number is 9 5 4 7 5 2 1 0 2 0.

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

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.