Truman Customer Story Column
Taking My Shirt Off at the Beach
When I ask what someone most wants to do after surgery, almost no one writes something grand. A person who had gynecomastia surgery in June wrote this: "Taking my shirt off at pools, water parks, the beach."
To others it is just a summer scene; to someone who has deliberated for years, it is a place avoided every year.
What Makes Someone Hesitate Is Usually Not One ThingThis person listed the things they worried about before deciding: pain, daily life, the recovery process, changes after surgery. "There was a lot that made me hesitate. It turned out to be needless worry."
It is similar in the consulting room. People do not stay away because one big thing blocks them, but because several small worries overlap and make the decision hesitate. Half of what a consultation does is to bring those worries out one at a time and answer each. That said, the course of recovery and the degree of pain vary between individuals, so it is difficult to say this person's experience applies to everyone as it is.
A Sense That Privacy Came FirstFor their impression of the first visit, this person wrote: "The sense that privacy came first. It was comfortable."
Because that is something we constructed deliberately, I was glad to see it named. For men, concerns about body shape start with the threshold of saying it out loud. The waiting route, the layout of the consulting rooms, and the order of the visit are arranged to lower that threshold. Only if you can speak comfortably can we grasp the condition accurately, and only with an accurate grasp is the surgical plan properly made.
The Reassurance of Hearing It Went as PlannedAs a moment that stayed with them from the surgery, they wrote about hearing the explanation of the surgical plan and expected changes, and about the reassurance of hearing, once the operation was over, that it had gone as planned.
Explanations are given in the consulting room before surgery, and results are given after it is finished. No conversation takes place with the patient in the operating room. Anesthesia is handled by the anesthesiology team, and I enter afterward.
The reason we share the plan in advance is not to promise a result but to agree together on what standard to judge by. With a standard in place, patients can also gauge whether changes during recovery fall within the normal range.
At the end, this person wrote that it was less of an ordeal than expected. If you are facing the same concern, it is better to confirm your own condition through an examination first. I hope their day by the water this summer was a light one.
