my face looks awful, especially my nose. he made my nose look BIGGER and elongated from the face than my pre op nose! let me start by saying if you have kaiser and are in socal, RUN from dr liu! please don’t risk going thru what i’m going thru, if anything I would opt for dr.lee who is in LA.
Dr. lee has a great bedside manner and is informative asf on any questions you have, with no sour attitude (i had a lengthy 2nd consult with him and he was very kind). he also attested to dr. liu’s shitty bedside manner; although he tried reassuring me that dr liu isn’t a hack, he has a different communication style.
I got approved for ffs and bottom a few years ago, dr.liu was my assigned ffs surgeon and he also oversees breast augmentation in my area. it all started when my trans care coordinator let me know that i was denied for breast augmentation. I was confused by this and was told it was not medically necessary (i’m like a 32AA?!!) and i was given dr. lius cell to call and discuss this decision. when i called, he was very apprehensive at me for “even questioning the decision he made after it had already been made by him” and was dead set on it being not medically necessary. My mom asked if we could see him in person to determine this further and he was aggressive on the phone even with her, pissed that we were trying to change his decision. this seemed to already have set a bad precedent with him as he was so hostile, so I reached out to my trans care coordinator to refer me out to get a 2nd consult (i was told that dr liu was on the board of committee approval and that the committee deemed it not medically necessary).
this was all prior to my ffs consult.
when it came time for my ffs consult, he had his nurse take a picture of my bare breasts and when i asked if these pictures were taken for breast augmentation consideration, he looked at me weirdly and replied “no!” in an aggressive manner. this situation didn’t seem right to me but i’m a people pleaser and i kept my mouth shut. he brought in a male colleague to sit in on the appt, he had a very intimidating demeanor so i was scared to say that i didn’t want anyone observing during my appt.
the consult went badly, he had a completely hostile attitude from the get go for seemingly no reason, as if he had something against me personally. my mom came with me to this consult and she picked up on it as well. furthermore, he got even more annoyed when i specified what my concern areas were and asked what specific procedures did he have in mind. I was very pleasant the whole time and kept letting him know that I know he is the expert and so I would like to hear what his thoughts are. overall a super unproductive visit and i was placed on his waitlist for months. in the meantime my coordinator referred me to dr.ames for a 2nd ffs consult since i didn’t like dr. liu. ultimately i decided not to go with her.
this following year, dr. lius office reached out to me out of the blue with a quickly approaching FFS surgery date, which i switched to the end of the month due to the pre op appt being too last minute and me not even having proper communication with the surgeon on what would be done on my face.
mind you i’m extremely young, i live stealth in society (i’m not sexually active before y’all start coming at me for being stealth, i just live my life as if i’m cis, it’s taken me a long journey to get here) so my face is very important! went to the pre op appt and
he still had a rude attitude but was actually able to name procedures that he would be doing. I came with my list of questions and was very specific about my wants and needs; i wanted him to be as aggressive as possible
Especially in my nose, and reassured him that i would be realistic since ik this is kaiser so they can’t just give me that aggressive doll look. he was offended by this for some reason (even tho i was saying that in response to him telling me to be realistic; i was assuring him that it was no worries and that i understand)
he went on a tangent about how he is much better than the private network surgeons in beverly hills. i reassured him that i know he is an expert especially with his lengthy yale credentials and he seemed to be trying to find fault in any positivity i was aiming at him. his attitude made me scared to do ffs with him. a few days prior to the ffs pre op appt, my coordinator let me know i could also get another opinion from dr. lee. I wish i had known about his existence sooner as I would have gone straight to him! dr.liu saw that i had a phone consult with dr.lee scheduled and intimidated the living hell out of me into verbally telling him that i would be proceeding with him as my surgeon.
very weird behavior, it sucks that in kaiser any of your doctors can see what appts u have and speak to u regarding them because it’s none of their business!!!
my mom was telling me that maybe it would be best to just do it ; with this political climate i might not be able to get my ffs if i took the chance of switching to dr.lee’s year long waitlist. Dr.lee was kind during our consult and communicated with dr.liu on my behalf on what exactly i was wanting. he advised me to show inspo pictures on my surgery date as well to help visualize what i’m wanting. my inspo pics featured girls with similar ethnic features to mine in their pre op, so i had realistic inspo pics. not like i pulled a photo of kim k and said “gimme this!!” lol.
when it came around to my surgery date and i had a chance to talk to dr liu n show my pics, he was PISSED! like he was DISGUSTED that i was even talking to him! it was one of the rudest interactions ever and he made an even more disgusted facial expression at me as he walked away. this scared me so badly. but i was already there and hooked up to an IV so i was fucked!!
following the surgery, he was very rough at my post op appt, rude as ever, and didn’t even bother to show me how to put on my nose cast. he seemed to want to get away from me as quickly as possible. i SOBBED AND SOBBEDDD during that appt as soon as he left the room because of how ugly I looked, everyone in the building saw me crying. i hoped and hoped that maybe it was just swelling and i’d start looking better as time passes, but here we are! i’m ugly, my nose looks MORE MANLY than before and BIGGER AND LONGER!!! it’s awful, this is a nightmare. and i just wasted months of my life for this: to be treated like shit by my surgeon throughout the whole experience as well as receive a horrible result. he didn’t keep in mind anything that i discussed; he just went and did whatever he wanted to do, whatever he had in his mind is what he did. i could have been at work making the rest of the money i need for my out of pocket breast augmentation but no, i had to waste a portion of my life on this. just to look ugly. i implore you, don’t go to dr liu! i don’t know what he had against me,
whether it be unconscious racism or that he didn’t like me challenging his opinion, but this was a horrible experience.
and ik how y’all like to discredit any girls that come on here with their negative kaiser experiences, and to that i say STFU! your ignorance is loud! just because you had a good experience with kaiser doesn’t mean that everyone does!
