Terry Dubrow: The Truth About Plastic Surgery | E176

Summary

In Search of Excellence: Terry Dubrow – The Truth About Plastic Surgery

Host: Randall Kaplan
Guest: Dr. Terry Dubrow
Date: November 7, 2025
Episode: 176

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Episode Overview

This episode of In Search of Excellence features Dr. Terry Dubrow, renowned plastic surgeon and star of the hit TV series Botched. Dr. Dubrow shares his journey through medicine and reality television, discusses the perils and truths of plastic surgery, addresses mental health in the profession, and explores broader lessons on success and preparation. The conversation covers Dr. Dubrow’s rise to fame, the ethics of surgery, trends like Brazilian butt lifts and the Ozempic craze, and candid advice on living a longer, healthier life.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Road to Fame: From "The Swan" to "Botched"

[01:08 – 08:32]

• Dr. Dubrow got his “TV break” through Fox's The Swan, after being chosen from 250 surgeons.
  • Quote: “I absolutely love plastic surgery. I love it. It's so interesting. I love it head to toe. I love what it can do for people.” (03:12, Dr. Dubrow)
• The premise of The Swan: “Ugly ducklings” undergo transformation and compete in a beauty contest.
  • “The message [of the show] would never work now... It was a major, major television production.” (04:32, Dr. Dubrow)
• Sudden fame: Surge in recognition and surgery volume; Dr. Dubrow was operating seven days a week.
  • “Within two episodes, I could walk into any liquor store, any restaurant...everybody knew who I was. It was instant fame.” (06:32, Dr. Dubrow)

2. Reinventing Reality—Creating Botched

[09:27 – 20:30]

• After The Swan and a turbulent period during the 2008 financial crisis (“Offices were completely empty...nothing to do.” (12:00, Dubrow)), Dr. Dubrow got involved in reality television again, leading ultimately to Botched.
• Original pitch for Botched was actually “the stupidest idea ever”—fixing other doctors’ failed surgeries on TV.
  • Quote: “What if we fail on national television? We're done.” (16:49, Dr. Dubrow)
• Transitioned into taking challenging cases, gaining massive surgical experience rapidly.
  • “All of a sudden we got 10,000 hours doing the most impossible plastic surgery. And it became easy.” (20:04, Dr. Dubrow)

3. Practicing Medicine on TV: Ethics, Mental Health, and Turning Down Patients

[20:31 – 29:57]

• Tackling complex cases on Botched sharpened Dr. Dubrow’s skills.
  • Most difficult case: Removing industrial caulking injected into a woman’s face.
    Quote: “I lifted up her face and sawed out the concrete, and it worked. That was my riskiest and most successful, impossible rescue.” (22:47, Dr. Dubrow)
• Emotional and psychological impact of surgery:
  • “I can't tell you how many times I've had a patient hug and cry and say that I saved their lives and that this is a restart and they can get a job now...” (24:40, Dr. Dubrow)
• Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD): “Some patients got to where they got because they have body dysmorphia and they keep going to plastic surgeons...Very few plastic surgeons turn down patients.” (25:06, Dr. Dubrow)
• Turning down patients as a marketing strategy and for ethical reasons:
  • “If I get the body dysmorphia patient who needs ...a thing fixed because it's a true deformity, I go, okay, let's play a game here...If I can come to some meeting of the minds...then I'll operate.” (27:06–29:41, Dr. Dubrow)

4. Plastic Surgery Trends and Risks

[29:57 – 40:39]

• Brazilian Butt Lifts: High risk of fatal fat embolism.
  • “I don't do it. I don't recommend anyone does it. ...It's not worth the risk.” (31:34, Dr. Dubrow)
• How to find a good plastic surgeon:
  • Board certification, hospital privileges, word of mouth, and how much time the surgeon spends with you. “Never trust a plastic surgeon you see on TV.” (35:09, Dr. Dubrow)
• Cost myths: No reason to pay exorbitant fees for basic procedures.
  • Quote: “Breast augmentation is an extraordinarily easy beginner operation in plastic surgery. Don’t spend more than 10 or 12 [thousand].” (36:05, Dr. Dubrow)
• Complications with implants: Most common is capsular contracture (“coconut implants”), often not the surgeon’s fault.
  • Praise for new “Motiva” implants: “...has a very low hardness rate. So my recommendation...is to look at the Motiva implants very carefully.” (39:09, Dr. Dubrow)

5. Fame, Family, and the Double-Edged Sword of Reality TV

[40:39 – 60:59]

• Risk of operating on celebrities: “If it goes badly, you got a problem. If you're not famous, you want to operate on celebrities.” (41:19, Dr. Dubrow)
• On operating on family: Only if you are uniquely skilled for that procedure.
• On the Housewives franchise: How Heather Dubrow (Terry’s wife) joined Real Housewives of Orange County (by a little white lie and signing her contract himself).
  • “I basically stopped talking to her for about two weeks...Finally, she goes, fine. If you want to go on Orange County Housewives, you sign the contract. So I signed her name, I sent it off.” (52:13, Dr. Dubrow)
• The cultural obsession with the Housewives: "People love it. It's a comparison...I think it comes down to judgy hatefulness." (55:37, Dr. Dubrow)
• Risks and rewards of reality TV exposure:
  • “Fame is very attractive...but it's very, very dangerous.” (58:58, Dr. Dubrow)
  • Advice to potential reality TV participants: Don’t do it unless you’re ready to risk everything coming out.

6. The Future of Surgery: Technology and Medical Trends

[44:47 – 47:50]

• AI and Robotics in Surgery:
  • “I don't think it's going to have any effect until robots learn how to have hands.” (44:51, Dr. Dubrow)
  • “That's bullshit. They can't. ...To do surgery. Not happening. Not true. Bs.” (45:08, Dr. Dubrow)
• Ozempic, Mounjaro, and weight loss drugs:
  • Dr. Dubrow is board certified in obesity medicine, prescribes these drugs, and says they offer anti-aging and healthspan benefits even for non-overweight people.
  • “I think everyone should be on microdosed GLP1s because of what they do for sugar and the inflammatory effects on sugar and how they are good for aging.” (47:29, Dr. Dubrow)

7. Extreme Preparation and the Keys to Excellence

[47:50 – 51:50]

• The importance of extreme preparation, in surgery and beyond.
  • Quote: “I would study for one and a half hour a day while I was on call. Gunshot wounds to the liver and just visualize it every single day...It was that preparation and only that preparation and visualization that allowed me to do that.” (48:10, Dr. Dubrow)
• Pursuing expertise outside one's field: Board certified in obesity medicine to address criticisms from peers.

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Memorable Quotes

• “It's a scalpel, not a magic wand.” (05:39, Dr. Dubrow on his famous TV commercial line)
• “The greatest underrated characteristic to anybody’s success is kindness.” (65:42, Randall Kaplan)
• “Treat your patients the way you would treat your mother.” (63:33, Dr. Dubrow)
• “Find your passion and work like hell to exploit it.” (62:04, Dr. Dubrow)
• "If you could go back and give your 21 year old self one piece of advice, what would it be? ...Buy Apple stock." (64:56, Dr. Dubrow)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• The Swan and Early Fame – [01:08 – 08:32]
• Genesis and Growth of Botched – [09:27 – 20:30]
• Mental Health, Patient Selection & Turning Down Patients – [20:31 – 29:57]
• Trendy & Dangerous Surgeries: BBL, Implants, Price Myths – [29:57 – 40:39]
• Celebrity Patients and Family, The Risks & Rewards of Fame – [40:39 – 60:59]
• AI, Ozempic, and the Future of Medicine – [44:47 – 47:50]
• Extreme Preparation: Secrets of Success – [47:50 – 51:50]
• Housewives: Inside Story and Cautionary Advice – [51:50 – 60:59]
• Rapid Fire ‘Fill in the Blank to Excellence’ Round – [62:02 – 67:56]

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Notable Moments

• Dr. Dubrow’s vulnerability about family and regrets:

  • “My biggest fear is that with one of my kids that I won't repair the relationship...to the point where it should be.” (62:52, Dr. Dubrow)
  • On his brother’s death: “He’s an asshole. I mean, he knew better.” (66:28, Dr. Dubrow)

• Direct advice for anyone considering plastic surgery:

  • “Go see a few [surgeons] and see how much time they spend with you.” (34:49, Dr. Dubrow)
  • “Never trust a plastic surgeon you see on TV.” (35:09, Dr. Dubrow, playfully self-aware)

• On what he would invent if he could:
  “A device that would tighten skin without cutting it.” (64:51, Dr. Dubrow)

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Final Takeaways

• Success in plastic surgery (and life) hinges on passion, extreme preparation, and integrity.
• Fame is intoxicating—but potentially dangerous. Be careful what you wish for in reality TV.
• Plastic surgery, while powerful, is rife with risks—both physical and psychological—for both patient and surgeon.
• Don’t chase trends blindly (BBL, exorbitant fees, or surgeries you may not need); do your homework and seek out real expertise.
• Kindness and gratitude matter as much as excellence.
• Stay curious, never stop learning, and if you can, contribute to the greater good.

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This episode offers a refreshingly candid, often humorous, sometimes sobering look at the intersection of medicine, media, and personal growth—from one of the world’s most famous plastic surgeons.

Transcript

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Fame is very attractive, you know, but it's very, very dangerous. No other field than surgery is it more important to spend hours doing it. You get not only incrementally better, but exponentially better the more you do surgery. You're better at 50 than you are at 40. You're better at 60 than you are at 50.

[Host / Interviewer]

How is AI going to improve the future of plastic surgery?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I don't think it's going to have any effect until robots learn how to have hands.

[Host / Interviewer]

Welcome to In Search of Excellence. My guest today is my friend Terry Dubrow. He is a star plastic surgeon, one of the best plastic surgeons in the world, and the star of the awesome TV show Botched, which I watched, I think, for the first three years every night after I met my wife Madison. She was absolutely obsessed with the show. Terri, thanks for being here. Welcome to In Search of Excellence.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this.

[Host / Interviewer]

So let's go 11 years forward in your career. You have an excellent career. And they're casting for a show called the Swan, which was a life changing moment for you.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Host / Interviewer]

Let's start at the beginning. Let's talk about the producer interviewing 250 people before selecting you. So how did you get selected? Tell us about the show.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

It is widely and I agree, considered the worst reality show of all time. And not at the time, though. But now when you look back, it was. But they sent out faxes to all these plastic surgeons. Basically, if you were board certified in plastic surgery, you got a fax saying, casting for a new reality show about plastic surgery. So I hand this to my office manager.

[Host / Interviewer]

This was before reality was huge. I mean, it was big, but it was nothing like it.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

The only thing that was really. Yeah. Was before it was huge. But I mean, American Idol was on.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So my office manager sends him a fax or sends him a thing saying, yeah, we'd like to apply. I didn't think about it. The casting agents came down and met me, interviewed me and left. And I thought, okay, well, whatever. So unbeknownst to me, they had interviewed everybody in Newport beach, everybody in Beverly Hills and there in between. And they started with like 250, went down to 200, went down to 100. And then they were like in the last 20, and they call my office manager some five months later goes, hey, they're coming back down to interview you again. And I go, okay. So they come back down and they talk to me again and they leave. I don't hear from them for three months. And then they call me directly, they want to speak to me directly. And they say, hey, you're in the top 10. You got the final call back to be on this show. I go, what's a callback? I didn't even know what that was. They go, yeah. I said, are you guys coming down again? No, no, the. The creator of the show and the executive producer coming down this time.

[Host / Interviewer]

And I said, okay, that would be Nellie Galan.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Nellie Galan. And this other guy, I can't remember his name, really nice guy. And they sit down in front of me and Nellie goes, why should we pick you to be the plastic surgeon on the swan? And I said to her, I don't know that you should, to be honest with you. And she goes, why? I go, cause look at me. I don't look like a TV plastic surgeon. I'm not a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. I go, but I will tell you, I absolutely love plastic surgery. I love it. It's so interesting. I love it head to toe. I love what it can do for people. I love the way it makes people feel. And like, I'm talking like this. And she turns to the guy right there and she goes, him? And he goes, definitely. And I go. She goes, so who do you want to do it with? I go, you telling me I got it. She goes, you got it? I go, well, I trained with this guy at ucla. He was co chief resident with me. How about him? Is he on the list? Well, we kind of. I go interview him again because we'll be safe. You have to be safe with this. She goes, okay. She interviews him. She comes back to me, she goes, what dentist do you like? I go, I like this dentist. She goes, what trainer you like? I go, my trainer. So she picked everybody except the therapist. I didn't pick the therapist. Everybody I cast on the show. And we started this show and I had no idea what it was gonna be. They didn't really know what it was gonna be. And then we did the show.

[Host / Interviewer]

So what's the one liner on the show?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

It's a show where a group of so called ugly ducklings. So bad, right?

[Host / Interviewer]

They're ugly. Come on. On my show, right?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

The message would never work. Now ugly ducklings come, leave their lives for three months and dedicate themselves to an internal external transformation. Compete weekly to be part of a beauty contest. And they're either eliminated or not eliminated. If you're eliminated, you go home with your plastic surgery, which is a win. If you're not, you get to be participate in a beauty Contest at the end to see who becomes the ultimate swan. And they were sort of making up the show as it was going along. But it was a major, major television production on Fox by the people who do, you know, Top Chef and all the. All of those. And so I remember we did the show. This was sort of a peak experience for me. We did the show watching American Idol and it was like in the fourth episode of American Idol. And what are they getting, 50 million viewers a week, American Idol back then. And there's a commercial and it says, coming this fall. And it starts to show rapid fire sequence, all these surgical scenes and all these people having surgery and having transformations. I think I see myself in there or not. And then it ends up with a chair. And I'm sitting there and I look at the camera and I go, it's a scalpel, not a magic wand. The swan. And I look at Heather, my wife, and I go, did this just happen? And I remember we had TiVo and so I rewound it. And then, I'll be perfectly honest with you, every time she would like get up to go to the bathroom or go get something in the kitchen, I rewind it and go, it's a scovel. Not imaginable. I must have watched myself narcissistically say that 50 times that night. It's a scalpel, not a magic wand. And I was like, oh, my God, the swan. It was crazy.

[Host / Interviewer]

This was your coming out party.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

This is my coming out. And the show came out and it was after American Idol.

[Host / Interviewer]

Couldn't ask for a better lead in.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I mean, they had like 20 million. I don't know. It was huge. Within two episodes, I could walk into any liquor store, any restaurant, any, anywhere. Cause there was like what, seven channels back then. Maybe everybody knew who I was. It was instant fame.

[Host / Interviewer]

What was that like?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Awesome. It was so awesome. Because reality TV fame is different than movie star fame. Everybody is really nice to you, and everybody doesn't treat you like they treat you special, but not like, oh, you're little Brad Pitt or you're Robert Downey Jr. Kind of. Oh, like this. They're like, hey, great job. Hey, Terry. Hey, Terry. It's like. And it's still that way. It's the best kind of fame being a reality TV person. Everybody's so just sweet and nice and even if they don't like you, they act like they like you. So it was really weird. It was. Changed everything overnight.

[Host / Interviewer]

And massive doubled your number of surgery outputs as well. Overnight.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I mean, I went from doing, you know, a typical plastic Surgeon will do 110 cases a year. I was doing 707 days a week. Seven days a week. And so that whole, you know, no other field than surgery is it more important to spend hours doing it. You get not only incrementally better, but exponentially better the more you do surgery. Even in your 30s and 40s and 50s, you're better at 50 than you are at 40. You're better at 60 than you are at 50. It just works that way. Imagine Tom Brady if he didn't degenerate physically, how much better a quarterback he'd be today if he could have Tom Brady's physicality at 27, or when he be when he figured out his own physicality. Imagine him as a quarterback now, knowing what he knows. But anyway, so I got to be like a surgeon within three years with about 12 years of surgical experience. In three years was good. And the financial success that came with that was really fun, too.

[Host / Interviewer]

We'll talk about that a little later in the show as well.

[Sponsor / Advertiser]

I hope you're enjoying this video so far, but before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach the next level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google, Lyft, and Seagate. And I also co founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage of my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did in my own journey. I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals.

[Host / Interviewer]

I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others.

[Sponsor / Advertiser]

I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions, and if you're a good fit, my team will reach.

[Host / Interviewer]

Out so we can build a game plan together.

[Sponsor / Advertiser]

All right, now let's get back to the video.

[Host / Interviewer]

It airs for three seasons, then you take a break for the show that no one else really remembers, Bridal Plastic. And then three and a half years goes by, and then you get this call when you have the Flu from Paul Nasif. Am I saying this?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Paul Nassif.

[Host / Interviewer]

Paul Nassif, yes. Who pitched you on something that you call the stupidest idea ever.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Host / Interviewer]

Turned out to be not so stupid.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. Backing up just slightly. Paul had gone on to Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I went on. It was 2007 and 8, global financial crisis. Nobody was having plastic surgery. There was nothing happening. Our offices were completely empty. There was nothing to do. I don't know how that affected you. I'd love to hear how it affected you. Probably didn't affect you. You were successful by then. But anyway, in 2008, you remember global financial crisis.

[Host / Interviewer]

So interesting that you asked. So our company had gone public months after we incorporated, and we're $3.2 million in revenue. Our valuation was $35 billion, which was more at the time than Chrysler, Ford and GM combined. During the financial crisis. Oh, in 2008. Yeah, during the financial crisis. The stock cratered. And I remember I was. It was my 40th birthday. I'd always want to go to Tuscany. So I have a girlfriend. It is not going well. We broke up. She had substance abuse issues and we'd break up all the time. Basically begged her to go on the trip. It was an expensive trip. It was paid for. Come on, we'll go. It's my birthday was a disaster. Not only were we not getting along, but I saw my stock portfolio, which was substantial, going down by tens of millions of dollars every day and just getting sick. I just gotten divorced, so was very generous with my ex wife. And then I got this much left, and Now I've got 40% left. I'm just absolutely beside myself.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Okay, so you had same.

[Host / Interviewer]

You had, I mean, depressed. It's like, oh, my God, I. I don't even want to go out for a 200 dinner.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Okay.

[Host / Interviewer]

Because the hotel room is 2500 a night.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right.

[Host / Interviewer]

And I just. And I remember canceling my party. Berlin, who played at a charity event that I started called the Justice Ball, had played at the Justice Ball years before. And I wanted Terry Nunn, who I had a crush on, to play at my birthday party. And I remember booking it through William Morris. And on the trip I said, hey, you know, I'm. I'm not doing this. So, yeah, that was a bad time for me.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So same for me.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Except literally no one was having plastic surgery.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Zero tumbleweeds. Okay. In. In all of our offices. And I just moved. We built this giant, beautiful home in Newport coast, and I put all my funds into it. And I need money to furnish it and so on. And anyway, so I'm sitting there and we're all sort of looking at each other. You ever see the Hot for Teacher video? Van Halen with a little kid like this? Yeah, we're all sort of like this. You know, where's my pencil? I got my. You know that. And so Heather goes, what are we going to do? And I remember I said, I'm going to do something extraordinary. She goes, do it. I go, okay. So I took an iPad. Couldn't sleep at all. I took an iPad. It was like 4 in the morning. And I go, my wife's best friends are all these beautiful girls whose husbands. One was the CEO of Smith and Wesson, one was a neurosurgeon. All wealthy, very talented business people who were all. We were all freaking out, suffering. One guy owned the biggest wall design company in the nation that just tanked immediately. And we had been joking at one of our dinners that we should have our. We should open up a restaurant, have our wives do it. It'll be a spectacular failure, but won't it be funny? And our wives were really pretty women. Okay. Very TV ready. One of the guys had a helicopter. He started Boost Mobile in Australia. Peter Aterton. Anyway, so I wake up and I go, okay. And I take out the thing and I go. I go, Google. I go, how do you write a pitch deck? And I'm reading How to write a pitch deck for a reality show. So I start to write up a pitch deck called Pelican Hill Wives TV show about these wives of these guys who open up a restaurant. It's going to be a spectacular failure. And I take their pictures from their Instagram and I put them in there and I go, I do a pretty good job. Now, I'd have ChatGPT do it, but it took me like two serious nights, maybe six hours to do it. And it was really. I sor. Of put together really well. And then I said, okay, so who produces the Biggest Loser? And I go, okay. So I sent this off. I go, here's a great idea for a TV show. And then I sent it off to this other producer and this other producer, just like that story you told me about. You sent out all those letters and got all those interviews. Every single major production company within 12 hours, text me back and go, we want to meet with those girls and you. So I met with all of them around town, all the major production companies, and they all offer a deal to do the show. Now, it doesn't Mean, show sold. But the producers are willing to do a development with these. And then we're about to sign with, I think, the Biggest Loser producers. And the girls are so excited. Oh, we're going to get on a reality show. And the guys in behind go, where are we getting the money to open up this restaurant, by the way? Are you going to fund this thing? I'm going, oh, I don't know. I don't have it right now. It's in my house. I need it for furniture anyway. So then I go, so Heather, my wife, goes. And the girls go, who should we sign with? And I go, let me think about it. So that night I Woke up at 4 o' clock in the morning. I go, who does that? There's that housewife show. And so I look up producers of housewives, and it was evolution. So I said, well, I send them off. 12 hours later, I get a thing saying, hey, we'd like to take a meeting. They get in their helicopter, they fly, all the girls fly up to meet them in Burbank. I drive my hybrid after work and I meet with this guy named Alex Baskin, who's one of the most powerful reality producers in Hollywood right now. And I meet with him and I go, huh? And he goes, yeah, I see it. And then I'm driving home and I go, listen. He calls me and I go, so, what do you think? And he goes, I have a proposition for you. How about this? I have a better idea. He goes, why don't you have your wife be the next housewife on Real Housewives of Orange county, and we'll let you bring that on there and incubate that on a hit show. And I go, whoa, that's a great idea.

[Host / Interviewer]

Incubate the restaurant idea.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Spin it off.

[Host / Interviewer]

Okay, but we're not on the botched story right now. We're on the.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

But this is how I got on reality tv.

[Host / Interviewer]

Oh, this is how you got on the TV show. Okay, gotcha. You're listening to part two of my incredible interview with Terry Deborau, the most famous plastic surgeon in the world and the star of the TV hit show Botched. If you haven't yet listened to part one, be sure to check that one out first. Now, without further ado, here's part two of my awesome interview with Terry.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

When you're on a reality TV show, it's not that it's so great to be on a reality TV show. It's just you want to stay on a reality TV show, you don't want to Ever get off because you don't want to lose that fame?

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, it's weird.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So he calls me, he goes, I have an idea. Let's do a show about fixing complications from plastic surgery. And I go, that is the worst idea ever. And he goes, why? I go, because if they have such bad complications, everybody's tried to fix them, they failed. What are the chances we're going to be able to fix them? And what if we fail on national television? We're done. And I said to him, I have a better idea. Let's do a show about fixing congenital and traumatic injuries. And he goes, okay. So anyway, we take a meeting with the housewife producers. Cause we know them. Cause we're on the Housewives. And they go, we love that idea. Let's call it Nip Fucked.

[Host / Interviewer]

After Nip Tucked, which was probably my favorite show on the air, those guys were awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So we'll call it Nip Fucked. So Paul and I do a five minute sizzle reel where we're just looking through pictures of celebrities and sort of commenting on them. And I'm making fun of Paul and he's talking to me. And that was it. We submit this to the network, this five minute sizzle reel, and they go straight to series. And a week before the show comes out, they decide the advertisers don't like the name Nip, even though there was a show on called My Father says yes, yes, starring William Shatner.

[Host / Interviewer]

But anyway, the F word is a little more on the spectrum.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

It was going to be etten, true, ff, asterisk, ckd. Anyway, so I go, what did, what did they change it? We changed it to Botched. And Paulie went, that's a disaster. And they go, why? And I said, because that means the Doctor blew it. And that's going to like, what? Are we going to make fun of the Doctor? They're going to hate us. Anyway, that was the genesis of Botched.

[Sponsor / Advertiser]

Hope you're enjoying this video so far. But before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach the next level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google, lift and Seagate. And I also co founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage in my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned So you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey, I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals.

[Host / Interviewer]

I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others, and.

[Sponsor / Advertiser]

I'm looking for a few high hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions, and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video.

[Host / Interviewer]

Okay, for everybody watching the show right now and listening, we are coming back to the housewife story. I've got. I've got. You have more housewives. So many people. You got to ask Terry about the housewife. You got to ask about Heather and the housewife. So we're coming back to that.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Everyone, I'm sorry, but I had to tell you how I met Paul.

[Host / Interviewer]

No, it's perfect.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

The Paul thing.

[Host / Interviewer]

It's perfect. So it reoriented your practice, essentially, because you went from doing routine procedures to reinventing yourself, essentially doing things that were passionate and difficult.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. So the first season, they sent us all these potential candidates, and I said to Paul, I go, well, I can't. We can't fix that. We can't fix. So we, like, turned down, like, 98% and took the ones that looked. Looked bad. We thought maybe we had a chance to fix, and we fixed them, and it worked. And then the second season, we started to take more difficult cases, and all of a sudden we got 10,000 hours doing the most impossible plastic surgery. And it became easy.

[Host / Interviewer]

So botch aired for eight seasons, and now you're doing a rewind and botched. Has it been picked up again?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I can't announce that officially, but it's looking.

[Host / Interviewer]

People are. You can look forward to people. My wife will be thrilled.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

You can look forward to more botched.

[Host / Interviewer]

Crazy things happen on that show.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Host / Interviewer]

What's the most. And when I watched it for the first time, I mean, a lot of people don't like gore, right? My wife, I like watching murder mysteries. And, you know, whenever she walks into the bedroom at night, someone's getting shot, their head is getting blown off, whatever the case may be. But yet here we are, and she's watching things on Botch that I'm having a hard time watching. Oh, this is so cool. So cool. It Ended up being cool for me. I thought, okay, well, this is interesting. You learn a lot about human nature and we'll talk about the mental things that. That go through a lot of these patients. But what was the most difficult case that you had on botched?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So there was this woman who came in season three who had had illegal substances injected into her face at one of these sort of plumping parties they have, and some they called her the madam, used to go to a hardware store and get caulking material and tell patients it was regular filler and inject it into their face. And she started to grow these granulomas, these inflammatory masses in response to them. So she came in season two or three with these giant. And we knew we were going to turn her down. We already knew that because too dangerous. You could kill the skin, injure the nerves, make it worse, reignite more of an inflammatory response. So we brought her on and I met her and I went, oh, my gosh, I can't believe she has to live like this. So the season ends, and for the next five months between season three and season four, I wake up every morning at 4am and just think about, what can I do for her? And then I had an epiphany and I figured out how to address it. And the main the concept is, why am I trying to remove all of it? Just remove the central seven eights, leave them skin above it intact, leave the nerves below it intact. And you have bones that are regular anyway, as long as you can't see it, even if you can feel it, she'll look normal. So I brought her back on the show the next season and I borrowed my buddy's orthopedic tools, his saws, and I sawed out the concrete. I lifted up her face and sawed out the concrete, and it worked. So that was my riskiest and most sort of successful, impossible rescue. Unbotched.

[Host / Interviewer]

And you tell people before surgery, like a lot of surgeons do, you could die. Oh, yeah, surgery.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Oh, yeah.

[Host / Interviewer]

So they sign all kinds of forms. Have any of your patients died after surgery?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

No, I've been very fortunate. I've had maybe seven or eight patients who've had blood clots in their legs, who spread to their lungs. And I'm very paranoid. One thing about being on television, it imbues in you a certain level of both social and. And career paranoia. And you're stupid if it doesn't, but for me it does. It makes me extremely paranoid. So if my patient. I see all my patients many, many times immediately after Surgery and if they call with any kind of complaint, come in, gotta see or go to the ER right now. And so all seven or eight of those have made it to the er, were put on anticoagulants and survived.

[Host / Interviewer]

You do life saving surgeries for people. And I think today's environment, people think about mental health in a way they didn't used to before 20 years ago. It's like, oh, you know, you're depressed, get over it. Today you see a lot of suicides from what appear to be normally healthy people. People who commit suicide without warning because they haven't told people. What percentage of patients do you think whose lives you're saving because they're mentally suffering so much that they want to look better?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

That's an interesting question. I can tell you that we've done eight seasons over 10 years.

[Host / Interviewer]

Not, not just on the show, but just in.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Oh, in general.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah. In your general practice.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I mean, I'd like to think a lot, but I can't tell you how many times I've had a patient hug and cry and say that I saved their lives and that this is a restart and they can get a job now and do on it. You know, I think that's been a, a happy part of my career.

[Host / Interviewer]

There's excess in a lot of things. We do talk about body dysmorphic disorder, explain to people what it is and then how that affects your practice. Yes and no.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

It's very tricky because body dysmorphia disorder, which people refer to also as bdd, is when a person has an extreme concern about something in their appearance that's above and beyond what they should have or even what you can see. You know, like a bump on a nose can be devastating and it's ruining my life where you can barely. You have to sort of turn their head to take a look at it. So it's an extraordinary level of concern about a minimal deformity sort of kind of thing. The problem with botched, and one of the scariest things with botched is that some of the patients got to where they got because they have body dysmorphia and they keep going to plastic surgeons to have more plastic surgery. And if you walk into a plastic surgeon's office, he's gonna offer you surgery. And so the more because of the financial incident, because of the financial thing for sure. Not all, but most.

[Host / Interviewer]

Costs a shit ton of money.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Costs a shit ton of money. And they have expensive overheads in offices and they want to have nice lifestyles. So very few Plastic surgeons turn down patients. So if you do enough surgery, ultimately the blood supply can be disrupted enough that you get infected, inflamed, destroyed, and it can die. They then come into your office as the botched doctor destroyed. But they have body dysmorphia. So under normal psychological criteria, you would never allow them to have plastic surgery. But what are you going to do? You've got to now take on the worst psychological candidate for plastic surgery. But you have to, because you can't let them live the rest of their life with no nose or with a distorted face or with breasts that are contracted and look like crab claws. Can be very tricky, but I've learned how to do that.

[Host / Interviewer]

Tell us how many patients you turn down and how. Actually, it's ironic that no could be a phenomenal marketing strategy.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah, I turn down patients all the time. And one of. Now, honestly, one of the nice things about being financially secure and being extremely successful and well known as a plastic surgeon is I really don't need to operate for money anymore. Probably smarter if I stop, to be honest with you. I don't need the risk anymore. And the potential extortion of someone saying. Because if someone puts out a tweet saying, terry Debro ruined me, TMZ is going to call me within an hour and they're going to publish that. And that's bad. But I love it. I'm pretty good at it. And I've learned to. I call it whisper, you know, the dog whisperer. I've learned to. My best ability, and it's not perfect, but I've learned how to whisper. Patients to allow them. If they're going to have plastic surgery, at least they understand. They've heard what the truth is about it. And so, like, if you came in and you wanted a facelift, you do not need a facelift. Okay? But you could certainly have a facelift, right? And let's say you are the type of person who did this. You go, I just love the way this looks. And I go, yeah, but you're going to look like a guy with a facelift, okay? You don't have this. Okay, this could use a facelift. But not you. For example, I would say, let me just tell you something, you look great. You're really not going to look better. You're going to look altered, you're going to look weird, you're going to have scars, and you're going to look like a dude who had plastic surgery. Isn't that going to turn you off from a facelift? Are you Going to have a facelift after I say that? No, probably not.

[Host / Interviewer]

Not doing that.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

How many plastic surgeons are going to say that to you? I promise you. You go to 10 plastic. The best plastic surgeons in Beverly hills, you're getting 10 pre ops, 10 people wanting to operate on you. Tomorrow, they're going to do a facelift on you. So that protects me from a lot. And then if I get the body dysmorphia patient who needs to have this thing fixed because it's a true deformity, I go, okay, let's play a game here. I operated on you, and it's worse. Where are we going to go from there? Oh, you're the botched doctor. It's not going to be worse. I go, nah, nah, this is. It's a scalpel, not a magic wand, okay? This is not a magic trick. I go. I go, but what if it goes badly? How are we going to handle that? Are you going to go crazy on me? Are you going to go in the hospital with severe. What are. What's our backup plan if it goes badly?

[Host / Interviewer]

So.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

And if they say, I'm not worried, it's you, I won't operate on them. But if I can come to some meeting of the minds, an agreement that I can feel comfortable with, that if it does go badly, we'll work through it, then I'll operate on them.

[Host / Interviewer]

It can be dangerous. And I want to talk about Kim Kardashian, who's one of the most famous people in the world. He's got 455 million followers on Instagram, and people are obsessed with her ass. And Brazilian butt lifts are some of the most popular forms of plastic surgery, and they're also the most dangerous form of plastic surgery. So maybe talk to us about what happens to make them so dangerous. And what's your advice to all the women out there who want the big ass?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Well, so, as you probably know, I'm not a fan of the Brazilian buttock lift and all. It is. It's very simple. You take fat from one part of your body through liposuction and inject into the buttock to make it fuller. Sounds easy, right? The problem is there are very short, big blood vessels in the buttock that are directly connected to the main vein feeding back to the heart to the vena cava. And if you get accidental, inadvertent fat injected into those blood vessels and it goes into your vena cava, it goes back to the right side of your heart to your lungs, and it gives you a fat Embolism. And that can be and is often fatal. So no operation. Oh, and that happens a high percentage, a higher percentage of the time than is acceptable in elective surgery. Look, if you have pancreas cancer, and I tell you there's a 1 in 3,000 chance you're going to die from this operation. You're still having the operation. I tell you there's a 1 in 2000 chance you're going to die from a Brazilian buttock lift. Well, there's hundreds of thousands of them done. It's not worth the risk. So I don't do it. I don't recommend anyone does it. And you know, I'm waiting. Remember the buttocks? I'm older than you, but the 70s buttocks. The bodero type, Derek type buttocks. The smaller buttocks. If you have a smaller buttocks, let's celebrate that. Now let's leave it alone.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah. Salute to Bo Derek. By the way, for those of us who are our generation, who I think was the most beautiful woman in the world, maybe ever.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Host / Interviewer]

So plastic surgery is huge. How does one find a great plastic surgeon? There's so much, you know, yada, yada, yada. I mean breast augmentation, which we're also going to talk about in a second. It's. Yeah, who's the best breast doctor? Who's the best nose doctor?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

It's, it's even harder now than it was before because, you know, you can't judge a plastic surgeon by their before and afters because they're not showing you every before and after. Right, right. And I just think there's a few basic fundamentals that you have to check a few boxes you have to check. You have to check board certification.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, I know. They all have board certification. No, Beverly Hills, all the doctors don't have it.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

No. Over 50% of the doctors who do cosmetic surgery, even Beverly Hills are not real plastic surgeons. They're cosmetic surgeons.

[Host / Interviewer]

Okay. What's the difference?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I trained. I did a residency in a fellowship in plastic surgery. A lot of them are general surgeons.

[Host / Interviewer]

Got it.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Or did weekend courses. So they have to be board certified American Board of Plastic Surgery or American Board of Facial Plastic Surgery Number two. You have to say to them, could you do this procedure in a hospital if I wanted you to? Oh, I never do in a hospital. I do the surgery center. No, no, no, no. Are you allowed to do this procedure in a hospital? And if they don't say yes, that means they're not vetted because a hospital won't let you do imagine what a hospital does before they take on the risk of letting you do a procedure in their hospital.

[Host / Interviewer]

Right.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So they have to be able. Have to have hospital prohibitive somewhere, then word of mouth, looking at their pictures doesn't really help you because I can do a thousand operations and have 20 good results. And I'm going to show you all 20.

[Host / Interviewer]

Exactly. No one's putting up their worst photos.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. So word of mouth. The nurses know, if you know any nurses, they know friends that have had good experiences. But it's funny, I was talking to someone the other day and they were talking about this one particularly hot plastic surgeon right now in New York. He's the guy of the moment. And they said, oh, well, they did so. And so. And then they did this person, that person, I said. And I said, you know, you really can't judge it by that necessarily because you're seeing such a small sample size of a huge piece of data that I said, if you, if we lined up our 50 of our worst results, you would never have plastic surgery from any of us. So the long, the short story is board certification, hospital privileges, word of mouth. If you can talk to people who've had surgery before with them, and then don't just go see one person, go see a few and see how much time they spend with you.

[Host / Interviewer]

They charge you, some of these people for the consultation. So you may spend five grand before you're.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

The guy who's really hot right now in New York, I think is charging you five grand for one hour to.

[Host / Interviewer]

Sit down with them.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah, if he spends an hour with you. And then I said this on season five of Botched. I looked at the page, I go, where did you find the plastic surgeon? She goes, he. I saw him on a TV ad. And I said to her, never trust a plastic surgeon you see on tv. And we had a moment, we broke the fort.

[Host / Interviewer]

She.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

She looked at me and I looked at. I went, just kidding. You know, obviously it was unbotched, Right?

[Host / Interviewer]

So price elasticity is important in everything that we do when we buy. Right. And so the range of prices in Beverly Hills, even for example, for breast implant surgery, could be 10,000 on the low end. And then I just. We had a friend who paid $80,000 for breast augmentation. Breast implants, Right. Insane or you get what you pay for? No, insane.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Insane. Breast augmentation is an extraordinarily easy beginner operation in plastic surgery.

[Host / Interviewer]

So.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Don'T spend more than 10 or 12. There's no difference between the guy in Culver City than the guy in Beverly Hills. It's a very, very basic operation. I will tell you, you may not be aware of this, but guys are now charging 350 to 400,000 for a facelift. I took care of a patient the other day, came in to see me. She had had a botched facelift in Beverly hills. She paid 350. She went to another guy to fix it in Manhattan. He charged her 450 and it's still a disaster. And then she came to me and I'm looking at the records going, wow, you've paid almost, including the aftercare and the hyperbaric, you've paid almost a million dollars for two failed plastic surgeries. You can go to Encino and find a fantastic plastic surgeon. You can find.

[Host / Interviewer]

People don't know how. Like, I hear my wife's friends talk about this all the time. You know, I had a baby, I want a breastless. I, you know, I need breast surgery now that I'm done with kids. It's like, it's like the talk of the town. They, they. And we live in Brentwood, which is a very wealthy community. So these people will pay for whatever they need to pay. Within reason. Yeah, within reason. But, you know, $40,000 for a, you know, boob job. Yeah. Okay, no problem.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

That's a lot. If someone's one thing I will tell you, if someone's charging 40,000, if they're getting 40, 50, 60,000, they're probably pretty good at it.

[Host / Interviewer]

Right.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So at least you're paying.

[Host / Interviewer]

There's a weight and all that.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. And you're probably waiting. You're paying for at least a minimal level of competency. But again, that's not a hard operation.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah. But let's talk about that. There's five FDA approved breast implant manufacturers in the United States and there's a thousand permutations between all of those breast implants. And again, like I. From single days, from friends of friends. They're all different. Right. It's not easy. Oh, they show you a picture book. Here's what I want my breasts to look like. They may or may not. Like, they may have one brand, they may have another brand. And I'm just going to be crude for a minute, but I remember dating a woman and her breasts literally felt like coconuts.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Host / Interviewer]

And I'm wondering, like, how on earth does that happen?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

And so the thing that makes breast augmentation a bad operation, by the way.

[Host / Interviewer]

It was so unattractive.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Host / Interviewer]

That it's like, just like. Yeah. Like a Little bit of touching. And I don't want to be, you know, too forward on the show, but it was like, not attracted, like so finished.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So the way I give a consult in plastic surgery for breast augmentation, I say, okay, you know, all the, all the good stuff behind breast augmentation. They say, right. I go, let me tell you all the negatives first. Let's get past that and then we'll talk about the good stuff. I said, the problem with breast augmentation is it's the number one operation that has, that will have a complication in plastic surgery. That's because we're putting a foreign body in you and the immune system will come by and put scar tissue. And no matter how good the plastic surgeon is, no matter what they tell you has nothing to do with him. It's all in your physiology. So you can be the best plastic surgeon who does the most difficult cases or who does the most breast augmentation. It's, it's going to happen to you potentially. So you have to know that it's on the consent form. However, good news is there is a new implant that just got FDA approved here last year called Motiva M O T I V A that we believe it just went through FDA approval. But that doesn't mean what I'm about to tell you is true. But it appears to be true because it's been in Europe for 13 years. It has a very low hardness rate. So my recommendation to people who breast implants these days is to look at the Motiva implants very carefully. But the coconut implants you saw had nothing to do with the surgeon.

[Host / Interviewer]

Oh, no. But he or she picked the implants.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

But they have a complication. Both they got encapsulated. It's called encapsulation. Scar tissue forms. I said, and that happens 15% of the time.

[Host / Interviewer]

And they have to be redone.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

They have to be redone. And by the way, you know, I think probably if there was no significant chance of capsular contracture, I probably wouldn't have a TV show because people try to fix it. They try to fix it again, fix it again, and then it starts to destroy the tissue.

[Host / Interviewer]

You have a lot of celebrity clients, when we were talking about this summary, said very risky celebrity have huge followings. And like you referenced on our show today, something goes bad. I don't know. I mean, great advertising on the one hand. So.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Oh, yes. So if you're, if you're quote unquote, I say this, you know, with all humility. If You're a famous plastic surgeon who is being followed by TMZ and other outlets. I think it's a better idea that you don't operate on celebrities. You don't need to. They're not going to really necessarily tell anybody. And if it goes badly, you got a problem. If you're not famous, you want to operate on celebrities.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Because you hope they'll tell people and that'll build your practice.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

But I remember an Academy Award winner came to me about 10 years ago wanting a facelift. And I met her and she was kind of nice. Not that nice, but kind of nice. And it was a chip shot facelift. It would have been fun to do. And I went home and I said, not in a million years am I going to do her facelift. Because if it goes badly. Yeah, that's me.

[Host / Interviewer]

Operating on family members. Yes. No. Your daughter had a problem with her lip when she was younger.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I say, okay, so different plastic surgeons feel differently about this. But I think what I'm about to say makes the most sense. Never operate in your family members. You lose your objectivity, you lose your perspective, unless you happen to have a particular experience and skill that is far above what other people have. So my wife had a thing in her stomach, and I don't know anybody else who can fix that because I've done it 117 times, and the best plastic surgeon, Beverly Hills, has done it twice. So it's just an. It's just, you know, you know that thing on Netflix, you know, America's Team, the thing with Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys?

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, that's on right now.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

It's on right now.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Troy Aikman can't throw in the rain. All right? So if it's raining, you don't, you don't really want Troy Aikman, as great as he is, to necessarily be your quarterback that day. Well, it's always raining with me. My cases are all botched, so I'm experienced. So if my kid, if it's. If I'm an expert at throwing in the rain and my kids in the rain, I'm gonna fix them, if you know what I mean.

[Host / Interviewer]

You know, I've heard stories, we've all heard them about wealthy Middle Eastern clients saying, I need a surgeon or a doctor. I'm gonna put them on my 747, I'm gonna pay them a million dollars, they're gonna come in for the day, and then you can go back home. Have you ever done a surgery like that?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So I, among other Surgeons I know have been offered to go over there and do that.

[Host / Interviewer]

A lot of money.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. You lose four days, they don't pay you a million dollars. And then what do you. So, no, I never do that. But I have friends who will go there for a week and do tons of surgery. But they become very, believe it or not, they don't want to pay that much anymore over there. So my friends will go over there and make 200 grand in a six day period. And it takes them 10 days to do it because they're two days over, two days back. And 200 grand in 10 days is not that much for a plastic surgeon.

[Host / Interviewer]

Your wife said she's the only wife of a plastic surgeon who does not have breast implants, by the way.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

We're kidding. We don't know that. We don't know every plastic surgeon.

[Host / Interviewer]

I don't know.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I mean, I don't know.

[Host / Interviewer]

You've not taken a national poll on this.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah, exactly. She's kidding, obviously.

[Host / Interviewer]

But she's a gorgeous woman and she has a beautiful figure and she does an even nicer person.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Thank you. But she. There was a period where she did that typical Orange County, Newport beach thing where she had four kids and then got ridiculously fit.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

And she basically had nothing in her chest. She'd show this to me, I'd go. She'd go, do you think I'd go, no, no, I don't know, I don't want to. Don't do it. And then weirdly, with hormonal shifts and perimenopause, they came back and it can happen.

[Host / Interviewer]

How is AI going to improve the future of plastic surgery?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I don't think it's going to have any effect until robots learn how to.

[Host / Interviewer]

Have hands, you see, on Instagram. And you know, I'm not in China right now, but there are stories and reels that I see. Robots actually doing surgery in the operating room.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

That's bs, by the way.

[Host / Interviewer]

Bullshit.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Bullshit. They can't. I mean, if that were true, I mean, you listen to Elon Musk. The hardest thing to do is the hand. Right. They can barely move a glass of water, a pitcher of water into a glass here. To do plastic. To do surgery. Not happening. Not true. Bs. It would be here.

[Host / Interviewer]

Obesity is a huge problem in the United States. Ozempic is all the rage right now. You tried it? To see how you're feeling. You're on it right now.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I'm on Mounjaro.

[Host / Interviewer]

Okay. I'm a Giant fan, so. Why? You're very fit.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yep.

[Host / Interviewer]

Were you overweight? And you. So why, why are you doing it so well? And who needs it?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. So I'm fascinated with this new generation of drugs. I think this is historic change in the treatment of obesity, which is the number one risk factor for all causes of mortality, including cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative disorders. Right. And heart disease. I got so obsessed with them and the way they work is I studied for a year. This is so typical me and someone like you too, at this stage of my life. Two years ago, I studied for the American Board of Obesity Medicine certification exam and I took the exam and I'm board certified in obesity medicine. So I'm a qualified expert in these drugs and I prescribe them. But these drugs go far beyond what they do just for obesity because of their effects on sugar and sugars related effects on inflammation. They clearly have a very powerful anti aging longevity effect. And now they're approved for patients who've had heart heart attacks. You put even if they're not overweight, they're approved for fatty liver disease, even if you're not overweight. They're about to be approved for Alzheimer's. So because of what they do to sugar and insulin sensitivity, their effects are far and above and beyond what they do for weight loss. And it was funny because I was talking to this gentleman the other day and he's on it and he had a gambling problem. That's done now that he's on these drugs. So who are they for officially, therefore? Diabetics. Okay, Type two diabetics. Officially, they have an indication for obesity if you have a BMI over 30 or over 27 with an associated comorbidity like high blood pressure. But if you ask me, because most of the stuff we do in medicine is off label, I think everyone should be on microdosed GLP1s because of what they do for sugar and the inflammatory effects on sugar and how they are good for aging.

[Host / Interviewer]

Let's talk about extreme preparation for a minute, which is one of the hallmarks of my success. Yes, tell me a story about how extreme preparation, which I'm talking about, someone may prepare one hour for something. You prepare 20 hours. Give me a story. Tell me a story about how extreme preparation has led to something that you otherwise would not have been able to achieve.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I can give you a number of examples. I'll give you just two quick ones. One is I remember when I was a chief resident in my last year of general surgery where you operated independently, you took trauma call by yourself. In my day, there Were no professors in the hospital. It was you and the young people below you. You were it. And you're like 27, okay? The most dangerous, scary thing. And you don't want to kill anybody in general surgery because you have to go to that morbidity mortality conference every Wednesday and present your complications of your deaths. And the professors sit there and threaten to fire you and say things like, well, why didn't you just take a gun and shoot him? Why did you bother operating on them? You know, I remember I was always worried about gunshot wounds to the liver because those are very, very dangerous. And so I thought, you know, I don't want to be surprised by a gunshot wound to the liver and have to do the Pringle maneuver and have to take the low bout, get control of the hepatic vein. Very dangerous stuff. That if so, I would study for one and a half hour a day while I was on call. Gunshot wounds to the liver and just visualize it every single day. And when you do general surgery, you're on my day. You're on call every other night, up all night operating on trauma every other night for six months, three months. Then you do three months elective, then three months again. Very intense, very cool. I kept getting these gunshot wounds to the liver and kept saving them over and over and over again. And it was that preparation and only that preparation and visualization that allowed me to do that. That's number one. The other thing recently is I got in a fight with Jillian Michaels, the former trainer on the Biggest Loser. When these Ozempic drugs came out, she went in the media and said, those are ridiculous. They're dangerous. Don't do them. Diet and exercise. And I said, she doesn't know what she's talking. This is on tmz. This is going viral. Jillian Michaels is a trainer. Don't get your medical advice from a personal trainer. And they're fantastic. She doesn't know what she's talking about. And they're great. And share your experience and don't shame people who are on them. And if you can treat obesity, you're going to live longer. And so we were battling, and I thought the one criticism one could have of me is that I'm not an expert in obesity medicine. So I thought, well, here I am in my mid-60s. Do I really want to do what it takes to get board certified by the American Board of Obesity Medicine? I mean, that's like a giant undertaking. So I studied literally almost two to three hours a day for a year, and then two Months before the exam, I studied about six hours a day. Now, my brain works pretty well, and yours does. But does it work as well as it did when you were 24? Maybe. I don't know if I could stuff as much math and science. I don't know. It works well for this kind of thing. But that's all new information. I'm not an internist. That's so far outside my specialty. So I studied and studied and took every practice exam, and I got a 94 percentile on the test. All right. Another doctor would go because it's board certification. Board certification means something in medicine. It means you took an extraordinarily difficult exam, and you are a true expert. And so that's, to me, my latest example of extreme preparation for something that I wanted to become an expert in and wanted to become a validated certified expert.

[Host / Interviewer]

We got to talk about the housewives. Now. My daughters have been all over me. I have all these questions. They're phenomenal stories. So tell us how lying actually got Heather on the show.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Host / Interviewer]

And then how someone threw a glass of wine.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yes.

[Host / Interviewer]

On another episode. And you said, hey, let's not do this. And she says, terry, too late, man.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right. So as I said earlier, global financial crisis. Got to do something. Let's do this show. And then through that process, the housewife producers became aware of Heather and water on the show. I came home and said, so would you consider being on the Real Housewives of Orange County? My wife was a bonafide actress on multiple TV shows years before that. And she said, absolutely not. That will kill any hope I ever have of being a scripted actress again. And it's cheesy and it's disgusting, and all they do is fight. And I go. And so I call up the producer. I go, yes, you'll do it. All right. So then he sends over the contract. And I go, let's talk about this again. I'm not talking about that housewife thing. So for, like, three weeks, maybe four weeks, we went back and forth. We argued. Yeah, I did something obnoxious. I basically stopped talking to her for about two weeks. I'd come home. Hi. And she goes, really? I go, no, I'm fine. Fine. That's okay. You could be offered a spot on the hit show, and you don't have to do it. That's okay. It'll just get us out there, give us a huge platform, but that's okay. And finally, she goes, fine. If you want to go on Orange County Housewives, you sign the contract. So I signed her name, I sent it off. And then, like, I do typically, I Woke up at 4am and I go, you know what? I've never seen this show. So I go on my iPad and I go, look at YouTube, Orange County Housewives. And I see this scene of this woman who at a party says, like, f you to the other woman and throws wine in her face. And I go, whoa, no way. We're not going on this show. This is trash. So I wake up and I go, hey, I'm so sorry. Forget it. She goes, what are you talking about? I go, I saw some episodes. I saw some scenes. I go, I don't want to go on this show. She goes, show me. And I showed it to her. She goes, oh, my God, that's ridiculous. But kind of funny. And all of a sudden, she sort of agrees to do it, and I'm freaked out, and I don't want to do it. And the rest is history.

[Host / Interviewer]

Why are people so obsessed with the Housewives? What is it about the show?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I think a couple of things. One, you love to judge people. You know, this generation of people with. With X and Instagram, it's. It's really good. The voyeur is voyeuristically and the ability to. You know, this person's losing their house. They're getting divorced. My station life's not so bad. So that's part of it. It's a comparison. You know, they say the comparison is the thief of joy. You ever heard that one where you're comparing yourself to someone more successful? Well, I think comparison sometimes makes. It may give you joy. If someone is not doing as well as you are, you feel like, well, I'm all right, that's one, two. And I'm just gonna be really honest. I think the culture has changed in this country, and there's a lot more meanness and a lot more hate. And there's so much hate and meanness on these shows that you can like. Oh, I hate that. The most popular housewives are the most hated sometimes.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

When you list the top four that week, I could name for you. They're the absolute most hated people, yet. They're the most popular. So superhero America has gone to super villain America. It's much better to be a villain than it is to be a hero, like, from our generation. We want to see you fail. We also want to see, you know, to be inspired. But I think it comes down to judgy hatefulness. People love it.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah. We had a conversation this summer, I think a half an hour sitting at the bar. By the way, my daughter Ariana is, you know, pelting you with questions. She's obsessed. Heather, Heather, Heather. Who's five feet away. And, you know, people just dying to talk to Heather as well.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Host / Interviewer]

But, you know, she knows every episode. She's watched them all three or four times. And then I explain to you that Megan Edmonds, who is on Orange county with Heather, had recommended that we apply to get into the show. So. And we had a conversation about this. So I think two or three years ago, Three years ago, four years ago, they came to the house, interviewed us, and I said, we went through the whole thing. Well, you bring the cameras? Oh, yeah, they had cameras. And I had to sit down.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

The process.

[Sponsor / Advertiser]

Yeah, yeah.

[Host / Interviewer]

But I said, well, just wait till we talk about the second time that they came at it. So, you know, the first time I said, I'm not doing it, it's embarrassed. It's not good for my career as a financial guy and respected guy in the community. I talked to friends and I just said, you know, I just. I don't want people inside my house. My kids were younger than time and said, if you do the show, we're never coming over. We're not talking to you. It's embarrassing to them if, you know, they don't want to be part of it. So I said, okay, we're done. Then last year, another bite at the apple. Madison told me, you know, they want to meet with us again. And I said, I'm not doing the show. And she said, well, I'm going to talk to them. So they met for 10 hours. Terry. And this is what I didn't know when I talked to you because you said. Because. Well, I didn't know because I said, oh, you know, talk to Terry. You talked to Terry. And they said, everyone wants a show just because they're reaching out to you. 250 people they're talking to. But I think that she went far down the line. It's just a Madison. It's not good for our family. I don't want people in the house. I love my privacy, by the way, and no one needs to know the business. And when I said to you, they wanted us on below deck, same with producers. And we talked about this, too. And I did the research, and half the people, they make out to look like clowns, and half the people, people, you know, you could promote something. So I'm going to promote my podcast, my company. But it, you know, that didn't work out either. And you said to me, yeah, don't do it.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

No.

[Host / Interviewer]

Has it been good or bad for you?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

It's been extraordinarily good. Extraordinarily good.

[Host / Interviewer]

So you're advising me? No. And it's been great for you. Well, by the way, it's a hard. No, we're not doing it, just to be clear. Yeah, but it's.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

It's been extraordinarily good. I would do it again 10 times over for us, for me, but I was a simple doctor. Okay. Even though I had been on the Swan, it's been good. We've been able to use it for very good reasons. We've been able to exploit the platform. We have very good relationships with the producers. But you don't need it. You don't need it, and it's just pure risk. Now, the reason. I don't know your wife. I've never met your wife. She wasn't there. Right.

[Host / Interviewer]

She had pneumonia when we were hanging out.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So I don't know your wife. But fame is very attractive. You know, it's the democratization of fame. It allows anybody to be famous, potentially. And when you get famous, it's hypnotic, it's sexy, it's awesome, it's. And women that do it, love it. You know, they're extracted. Extracted from obscurity or. Not necessarily. Well, relative obscurity. They may be well known within their own thing, but all of a sudden, everyone knows them and you get treated, but it's very, very dangerous. And I remember there was a plastic. No, there was a surgeon in Orange county whose wife was offered it. And he says to me, can we have coffee? I go, definitely. He looks at me, he goes, should I do it? I go, let me ask you one question. I go, is there anything in your past, anything you can think of that, if it came out, would be problematic for you as a doctor? They turn it down the next day.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah. I mean, we all have things in our past.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

It's all coming out.

[Host / Interviewer]

Right?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

But I. Most people go on it. It surprises me how many people go on it just as their relationship and their world is falling apart. And they think, you know, the old adage, people would have kids to try to fix their marriage, and it did the opposite.

[Host / Interviewer]

I tell everybody that, by the way, you got friends. Oh, we're gonna have a kid.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Like, it's gonna.

[Host / Interviewer]

It's gonna explode.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yes.

[Host / Interviewer]

Faster than Cure.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

You'd be shocked how many people. And you don't watch the show, but I don't watch it either. But people will come on in the middle of a bankruptcy, they're trying to hide on the show or in the actively committing crimes against other people and come on the show. They're so hypnotized by the possibility of fame. But I think you're too, you don't need it.

[Host / Interviewer]

I mean we're not doing it. I mean, I think there's a reason and we talked about this too. You got the Bethenny Frankels, the, the, you know, the holy grail. She made all this money on her liquor brand. And if you have a, a company to promote like my wife has a company, had a company, it's in its dormancy, it's a women's clothing brand called Madtown. But you know, she's a hands on mom, she's a full time mom. She doesn't have time to run the business. Said, well, you know, it's be great for business. I said, well yes, it would, but you know, you don't have, I mean you're not doing anything with the business, you know, and obviously, I mean she was passionate about her company. It was going well, but it just wasn't like it's. I can see why people would want to do it, but I also can see why most people would not want to do it. I mean everyone wants to be famous until like you said, it just takes one thing in your past and suddenly you're just, you know, you're the worst person on the planet. I can't believe you did that.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Exactly.

[Host / Interviewer]

We're at the end of the show and I always conclude it with the game I play called fill in the blank to excellence. You ready to play?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Host / Interviewer]

The biggest lesson I've learned in my.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Life is find your passion and work like hell to exploit it.

[Host / Interviewer]

My number one professional goal is to.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Share my education, training, experience to allow people to live healthier and longer.

[Host / Interviewer]

My number one personal goal is to.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Keep my marriage and strong for the rest of my life.

[Host / Interviewer]

My biggest regret is.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

This is going to sound so pathetic, but I had a whole bunch of money seeing an account, doing nothing and I almost bought Apple like 15 years ago with it. And I didn't, but I did about five years later by the way. But that's my number one. I don't have many regrets.

[Host / Interviewer]

My biggest fear is.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I guess my biggest fear is that but with one of my kids that I won't repair the relationship with to the point where it should be.

[Host / Interviewer]

You have strained relationships with your kids?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

One. Yeah, just one.

[Host / Interviewer]

The craziest thing that's happened in my career is.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I Mean, I got a TV show that allowed me become the most famous plastic surgeon in the world.

[Host / Interviewer]

That's the craziest thing, the funniest thing that's happened to me in my career.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Is I'm at a loss on that one. I can't think of any funny that happened to me.

[Host / Interviewer]

The best advice I've ever received is.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Treat your patients the way you would treat your mother.

[Host / Interviewer]

Ten years from now I'm going to.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Be doing hopefully less surgery and more content providing and content about health and wellness.

[Host / Interviewer]

Twenty years from now I'm going to.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Be doing hopefully exercising seven days a week, hanging out and flying around in my private jet. That's a terrible thing to say. God, I can't say I said that.

[Host / Interviewer]

If you could pick one trait that would make somebody successful, it is passion.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Intensity. For me, intensity.

[Host / Interviewer]

The most important thing that's contributed to my success is for sure my intensity.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

My ability to focus.

[Host / Interviewer]

The one thing that I've dreamt about doing for a long time but haven't.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Is having a reality show called Sudden Beauty Island. I've been wanting to do this for 30 years where I transform people with very significant deformities and they all fall in love with each other.

[Host / Interviewer]

If you could invent one thing in the medical field it would be that's.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

A good one, that's an easy one. A device that would tighten skin without cutting it.

[Host / Interviewer]

If you could go back in time and give your 21 year old self one piece of advice, what would it be?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

This is pathetic. Buy Apple. Buy Apple stock. I remember when it was A$30. To be honest with you, all my dreams have come true. Every single one of them.

[Host / Interviewer]

Blessed.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. Grateful. Lucky. Lucky, grateful.

[Host / Interviewer]

I can't tell you how many people who I've interviewed who have said luck is so important to their success. I know it is to mine. Timing is everything you do. Create your own luck through work ethic. And it takes a lot of things to be successful. But I think every successful person who thinks luck wasn't a part of it is not looking at themselves in the mirror.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Oh huge. And the final thing for me is always be kind. Always.

[Host / Interviewer]

One of the greatest underrated characteristics of anybody's success is kindness.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Host / Interviewer]

If I were President of the United States right now, the first thing I would do is.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

That's a very political question. Have a moratorium on hate. I would form a kindness council and a civility council and just tell everybody, just be nicer to everybody. Let's, let's like say no to hate.

[Host / Interviewer]

Your brother Kevin died of a drug overdose eventually. And if you could say one thing to him today, what would it be?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

You're an.

[Host / Interviewer]

That's what you would say to him? Yeah. I thought you'd call him. Me an.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

No.

[Host / Interviewer]

No.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I couldn't tell.

[Host / Interviewer]

He's looking right at me like, you.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Are an no, he's an. He's an asshole. I mean, he knew better. There was a song by Bad Company.

[Host / Interviewer]

One of my favorite star. Great song.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

And I said to him, I go, is this gonna be you, man? Sleeping bottles by your head Died, died in your bed. I go, is that gonna be. It's not gonna be me. I go, it's gonna be you, dude. And I go, you're gonna do that to our mother? They were like this. So I just say, you're an asshole and you owe me money.

[Host / Interviewer]

If you were on your deathbed and you had 60 seconds to live and Heather and your four kids were surrounding you, what's the last thing you would say to them?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I would say, oh, this is how you get people to cry. I get it. I would say, I had a great life. And your job for me is to have the best life you possibly can.

[Host / Interviewer]

The last question is, the one question you wish I'd asked you but didn't.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Is what's your best advice for extending your health span? And that is, you've got to do at least 150 minutes of cardio a week, increase your protein, do resistance training three to five times a week, and control your sugar, and you can live longer and healthier. And if you don't, you won't.

[Host / Interviewer]

I have one final question on that because I like beer. Ipa. Beer. Are you allowed to drink at all?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Hell, yes.

[Host / Interviewer]

Okay. I mean, in moderation.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

If it takes two years or three years off your life, so be it. Yeah, definitely drink within moderation. For sure. I'm not a big sober guy. Person.

[Host / Interviewer]

I appreciate you being on my show. This was awesome. It was great hanging with you a little this summer.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

You were awesome. I enjoyed it.

[Host / Interviewer]

Looking, Looking forward to hanging out with you and Heather.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. Yeah, let's. Let's do the four of us.

[Host / Interviewer]

We'll do the four of us for dinner.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

You know, you're gonna do. Your wife's gonna want to do the show, and she's gonna throw the gauntlet down.

[Host / Interviewer]

We're. We're gonna. We're gonna talk before some ground rules on the dinner.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

How badly she want to do it?

[Host / Interviewer]

She doesn't want to do it now. It's. It's. It just. It wouldn't be good for our lives. It wouldn't be good for our marriage. We have young kids. We don't want our 9 year old and our 5 year old.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

You don't need it.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, it's not gonna happen. Thanks for listening and watching to my latest episode of A Search of Excellence. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe on my social media channels. I look forward to the episode next week and I hope you listen.