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For over 30 years he has been involved in hand, breast, head and neck surgery. He performed very complex reconstructive procedures after extensive oncological operations. Today, in the practice he runs, Tadeusz Witwicki, a specialist in the field of plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery, also “makes breasts”. In accordance with the wishes of the patients, it primarily enlarges them.
Do you have a lot of work, doctor?
A lot of. You can say that more and more.
Because for Poles, plastic surgery is almost a daily bread?
Indeed, the need for plastic surgeons is increasing. As a society, we have become a little Americanized. The media promoting the trend of being eternally young, fit and attractive are also doing their job.
Can a plastic surgeon provide this for us?
It can definitely help.
I assume your patients are mostly women?
Yes, approximately 90 percent of women decide to undergo cosmetic surgery.
How many of them improve the breasts?
The vast majority. The most common treatments are enlargement or lifting, less often reduction. All over the world, breast augmentation is the most common cosmetic surgery procedure. It is not a coincidence. The female breast is an attribute of femininity.
I understand that this breast should be big?
I do not go into such issues, although women do emphasize that they want to look more feminine, which is difficult with small, underdeveloped breasts, as many clothes show off this bust. Ladies in their twenties or twenties ask mainly for breast augmentation. The second very large group of women are those in their thirties. After the birth of children and the difficulties of feeding, their breasts lost their former glory as a result of, for example, completely natural lactational atrophy of the mammary gland. These women want to restore their breasts’ firmness and old appearance and decide to enlarge them too.
And other treatments that interest Polish women?
We often do face lifts, i.e. lifting sagging facial tissues, upper and lower eyelids, correct protruding ears, and with an orthopedic friend we transplant stem cells obtained from adipose tissue into the joints. We also use lipogems, a new method in which adipose tissue enriched with stem cells is used to regenerate and fill facial wrinkles. Of course, we perform liposuction as well as the correction of flaccid or drooping abdominal integuments, often connected with hernias. We also operate noses. Both for aesthetic reasons, because someone, for example, does not like his nose, but also for reasons after an accident or as a reconstruction after severe, most often oncological diseases.
These issues are usually not taken into account when thinking about plastic surgery.
Wrong, because although plastic surgery is associated primarily with aesthetic surgery, i.e. procedures that are designed to undo or mask the passage of time, its scope is much wider. Plastic surgery is also hand surgery, or more broadly – surgery of the limbs; surgery of skin neoplasms, including skin; breast reconstruction and reconstruction in the area of the head and neck; treatment of pressure sores, ulcers and burns, as well as correction of birth defects in children.
Doesn’t it annoy you that with such a wide range of possibilities, people still think that like a plastic surgeon, he only makes breasts?
Not. Maybe because I have been dealing with breasts intensively for over twenty years, specifically breast reconstructive surgery. We perform deferred reconstruction in sick women. It consists in the fact that first the breast is removed, then the patient undergoes treatment, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and only when it is considered healthy, we proceed to breast reconstruction. We also do immediate reconstructions. In this case, immediately after the amputation, we start breast reconstruction. These treatments are mainly performed on women who are BRCA1 positive.
Takjak Angelina Jolie?
Exactly. The presence of the BRCA1 gene mutation means even an eighty percent risk of developing breast cancer. In this case, it is advisable to perform a double mastectomy, possibly combined with immediate breast reconstruction.
Did the case of Angelina Jolie really increase awareness in this area and cause more operations of this type?
This is difficult to estimate, mainly because knowledge about the effects of mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes has only been available for several years. Today we know that a positive BRCA1 gene causes a very high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. This means that in women who are its carriers, prophylactic surgery to remove the breast is recommended, because they provide a very high protection against breast cancer. The problem is that they are not reimbursed by the National Health Fund.
Coming back to the typical aesthetic procedures that you perform, where do Polish women get money for them?
I cannot answer this question. I do not deal with these issues, although I know of course that there are companies that credit this type of treatment. The truth is that if a woman wants to enlarge her breasts or correct her appearance something that annoys her a lot, she will find the means.
Judging by your clinic’s price list, sometimes quite a lot.
My prices are not the highest in Poland at all. I even think that they are low or medium-low. In any case, there are many offices much more expensive than us. I realize that finances always evoke emotions, and many people think that the prices of plastic surgeons performing aesthetic procedures are the highest in Poland. Not true. Very dear doctors are now orthopedists or neurosurgeons. Our prices are dictated by the market. Certain costs cannot be omitted, especially if you want to maintain a high standard of services and use good devices and products. Many years of experience of the doctors themselves is also important. It is worth remembering that such an activity does not start at the age of thirty. It is only around the age of 45 or 50 that you can consider performing aesthetic medicine treatments.
Dlaczego?
Because before you go about it, you must have experience. It is not only about the procedure itself, but also about the ability to deal with possible complications.
For years, the Lord dealt with, among others hand, head and neck surgery.
Why did you leave it?
There was a time when I was the only microsurgeon in the Oncology Center. I worked in two departments, reconstructing the breasts and reconstructing the head and neck. These were exhausting and complicated procedures under the microscope. Of course, they lasted many hours, because we often started operations at nine in the morning and ended at nine in the evening. The next day you had to come to work as usual. There were no special rewards for these treatments. Years passed and we were still organizationally at the beginning. So I came to the conclusion that I have a very interesting job, but unfortunately I am walking in one place. I transferred to the hospital of the Ministry of the Interior, where I became the head of the hospital. Currently, I only run my own surgery room.
Did you always know you were going to become a doctor?
Always not, but in fact I made the decision about medicine quite early. My father was a professor of orthopedics, he ran a trauma surgery clinic. As an associate professor, my mother was in charge of the pediatric ENT clinic. She was also a plastic surgeon. My parents talked a lot about work, so at home it often felt like a hospital. Anyway, I knew the hospital very well, I laugh that I was already on duty as a little boy, because when my mother had no one to leave me with, she took me to work with her. In turn, when I was a high school student, I went to my father’s to see surgeries. He dealt with oncology of the musculoskeletal system. I watched the great, innovative treatments that he performed as the first in Poland. Thanks to this, I got closer to surgery and decided that if I could get into medicine, I would be a surgeon.
Didn’t your parents advise you against this profession?
Not. I think my father was glad I wanted to be a surgeon. He only advised me against orthopedics as a very heavy piece of bread. At that time, there was only one hospital on duty in Warsaw, so everyone was going there, which meant really backbreaking work for the orthopedic doctors on duty. However, I had no aspirations for orthopedics. I wanted to do reconstructions, and I have been doing it very intensively for over thirty years.
Do you feel sorry for some of these great, innovative treatments?
I think I’ve done enough of them in my life. Now I am focusing on aesthetic surgery, which I have been doing since I specialized. I must admit that it was aesthetic surgery that enabled me to improve the material status of my family. There were no other options, because for many years I was mainly in the hospital and on duty. If I regret something, it is that plastic surgery is so often associated only with aesthetic surgery. And yet it is also beautiful hand surgery, beautiful reconstructive surgery, beautiful surgery of congenital malformations. A very useful specialization, necessary, but also difficult, requiring a lot of knowledge and intensive work, as well as a bit of spatial imagination and a bit of artistic talent. I would not exaggerate with the latter, of course, but the sense of harmony makes our work much easier.
Is it possible to talk about trends in plastic surgery?
Of course. In the last 10-15 years, these include lasers, threads, fillers, botox, and recently adipose tissue.
The one that many women want so much to get rid of?
The same. Today, adipose tissue is used for practically everything, even for breast restoration and augmentation, or instead of traditional facial modeling fillers. The last hit is stem cells. They are used on many levels, for example for weak hair or poorly functioning joints, but they are also implanted in the skin of the face to reduce the number of scars, improve healing and blood supply. All these novelties are of course aimed at reducing the number of complications, but in recent years an equally important issue has become a quick postoperative course, so that the patient is removed from daily activities for the shortest possible time.
So today the surgery and tomorrow to work?
Most patients would like that. People live very intensely today. They do not have time to exclude themselves from work or even from such ordinary everyday life, which is also very active. They used to go on long layoffs more willingly, but now they avoid it. After abdominal surgery, it happens that the patient has to pause a lot for about two weeks. Choosing a suitable date is often very difficult. If not work, leave. If not, then it is some sort of social or professional obligation. It happens that we look at the calendar and only find a date convenient for the patient in six months.
Can you judge what the woman has improved herself when you pass her by on the street or look at photos in magazines?
Sometimes these treatments are very unfortunately visible. The mouth, for example. I don’t know why my colleagues did it like that and why the patients decided to do it. Fortunately, now this fad has passed and everyone is moving away from it. But back to the question – yes, I can say that this lady had done this and that lady had something else done. Of course, the more it is undressed, the easier it is to notice.