Dr. 90210

The NYT has a long article on Roberto M. Rey Jr, Dr. Rey, or Dr. 90210. I think the point of the article is to show that the good Dr. is a hack:

One thing is clear: "Dr. 90210" is the show that traditional plastic surgeons love to hate. Critics including Dr. Mark L. Jewell, the president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, say that Dr. Rey is a skilled surgeon, but his informal way with patients is inappropriate, even undignified, and the reality show gives viewers the impression that plastic surgery is a casual beauty treatment rather than a serious surgical procedure.

Even worse, Dr. Rey is not board certified as a plastic surgeon. Now why would doctors be upset about that? What's clear is that he is an ambitious person:

Many patients and faithful viewers are familiar with Dr. Rey's life story as he has presented it: how he was raised by a single mother in São Paolo, Brazil, and how he spent his youth running with a crowd of teenage hoodlums and committing petty crimes. During his childhood he slept on sleeping bags on a broken dining room table, he said. But even then, he had dreams.

"Walking through the ghetto I was raised in, I knew I was going to go to the United States, go to Harvard, be a plastic surgeon, move to Beverly Hills, become a member of Congress and then become surgeon general," he said.

Okay, sometimes it gets to be a bit much:

"Look, I got my S.A.G. card before I got my medical license," Dr. Rey said, pulling from his wallet his Screen Actors Guild membership card (1980) and his California medical license (1993).

I have just a few thoughts. First, my one worry about Dr. Rey is that his practice will turn ugly. One of the most disturbing chapters in Complications addressed why good doctors go bad. Gawande spent a long section of that chapter discussing one doctor who became negligent. The doctor was way overbooked, rushed through his operations and his visits, and slowly became too overworked and overstressed to do a decent job. Sound familiar? If you've watched the show at all, you'll know that Dr. Rey is working from 8 am till 10 pm and just bought a giant 8,000 sf mansion. He's also paying two mortgages since his other house hasn't sold. His free time is spent juggling his family and his Tae Kwon Do. It's not a healthy life and will turn into a disaster if he continues on this path.

Apparently he has other plans though:

Dr. Rey still harbors his boyhood dreams of "going to Congress and changing things" and hopes eventually to become surgeon general so that "even poor migrant workers will have access to heath care," he said. But in the meantime he is concentrating on changing the face of cosmetic surgery.

"We have pioneered the idea of doctor as entertainer," Dr. Rey said. "I like to think I helped the marriage of plastic surgery and show business."

Comments

[brooklier]

i need your help re: dr. rey. I had surgery gone bad in 1998. had a hematoma almost died because a hospital would not let him fix me. If he is not certified why is he doing surgeries? An attorney trying to sue me for 1 million dollars for dr. rey states i am making false allegations against him but im not,and i just want justice done. Do you have further information that can assist me against this doctor, please anything you can do to help me and other patients.

[lana]

its sad to see a doctor with no BC on TV with E entertainment doing serious procedures. Woman and Men out there are so ridiculous and then they wonder why they go out and sue these doctors. Do your homework, clearly Dr. Rey is a man looking to make money by sweet talking all these dumb bimbos who have low self esteem and see a man in a suit with a head piece tell them "hey beautiful" even if your ugly. His way of getting into your wallet and setting you up for disaster. A doctor with no BC in plastic surgery should not be in business at all. Would you allow a dr with no BC in Neurology to do Brain Surgery on YOU. My guess is no way. so why are you even watching the show, and praise a thief from so called Brazil. He isnt a Harvard Med School grad. he is from Tufts and if you see the website he changes it around all the time in case he gets sued for fraud and misrepresentation. If he lies about the schools he went to then what seriously makes you trust someone like this? His Suit? His way of talking to you? What? There are so many trained professional Board Certified Plastic Surgeons out there who took the time to get this because of the importance of taking when you become a specialist. I feel that the show "E" is responsible for promoting a him as if he was reliable. Ask yourself this, would we be allowed to graduate even High School without passing the courses and test needed? NO

[anamaria]

1 million dollars kitchen? Yah right! Delinquent payments and eminent foreclosure is a future for Dr. Rey. DR. Rey had money to buy this house and no money for furniture. After 2 years all he could afford was just few pieces of furniture. Dr. Rey is obnoxious, phony, insolent and a clown. His Versace or whatever suits are second-hand and don’t match the Flea Market $1.00 necklaces he wears. His suits are too colorful and don’t fit well on him because he is very short in stature. About his suits been a cultural think, trust me, in Brazil even gays would be ashamed to dress like that. What’s up with that annoying scissor-spinning, highlighted hair plastered with AquaNet and ridiculous scrubs? His needs to be extremely enthusiastic about complementing women are a cover-up for his obviously gayness. His obsession with martial arts is explained by the fact that he has sex with his poor wife while fantasying about the guys he rubs his skin against on the martial arts performances. Hayley used to be more beautiful and had more meat on her body when they first met, now he suffers from anorexia, she is so unhappy all the time and she only cooks NoodleRoni for him. How many times did Hayley call him stupid during the episodes? Not enough times! That is all he deserves for been such a cold, narcissistic man and closet gay. There is no sexual sparks or any chemistry in they relationship. He treats her with disdain and indifference on front of the cameras. Lord only knows how he treats her off cameras. He forgets that if wasn’t for her parents to give him money to start he wouldn’t be nothing. Hayley’s mother hates him and doesn’t talk to him. Dr. Rey turns down patients with very minor medical problems and makes sure to tell his patients he has a team of 25 attorneys because he is afraid to do the same he did to his own brother. His own brother and sister sued Dr. Rey for malpractice because when giving his brother hair plugs he made him a paraplegic. According to the brother’s attorney, he is permanently disabled and unable to return to work as a storyboard artist in Hollywood. Didn’t Dr. Rey phrase so many times that his father hates him and after 20 years of not talking to him now is after his money? His father seemed to be living pretty well for what sounded like poor people and he didn’t ask for money. The poor old man looked so fragile and he was so happy to see his cold son. I doubted his father is such a monster like Dr. Rey claims. Now he is doing the same to his own kids. That makes him a monster too. He is an inept father, his little daughter Sidney doesn’t seem to like him very much. I was born in Sao Paulo city in Brazil, on the same barrio Lapa, from where Dr. Rey came from. The apartment Dr. Rey lived as a child is pretty decent, so why he has this need of saying he came from misery. He loves to play the victim. He never talks about his mother Avelina Reisdörfer who lives in USA, he never mentions her name, and I assume she hates him too. He does not show any appreciation for the missionaries who brought him to USA, I wonder if they have any communication with him. He makes negative and hateful comments about Americans and he wants to go back to Brazil when he is 65 years old. He is very Brazilian, he should go back now. I guarantee nobody would miss his phony smile. About him taking time out to do charities, my mom used to say “charity should start from your house front door to the inside, not from the front door to the outside world.” By the way, while doing his “charities” he was assisting the surgeons more than actually taking the lead and then robbing the honor from the other doctors. What an arrogant and narcissistic person! Dr. Sumner A. Slavin, the chief of plastic surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said about Dr. Rey: "I've never seen a doctor flit around an operating room like he was part of an amateur dance troupe," "This behavior denigrates plastic surgeons and makes our profession look illegitimate." This doctor is a fraud: he is not Board Certified and he is not a Harvard Medical School graduate, like he claims and make sure to phrase all the time. Dr. Rey is a joke in the medical community and not respected and accepted by his peers. Don't waist your money buying his stupid shapwear. This is his line to sell it: "The way we make the stitches is the same way I sew in surgery it's the same way I make a little hour glass tummy from tummy tucks". Dr. Gay doesn't know how to do a tummy tuck, he isn't even allowed to do any face work or lipo just boobs which is the easiest procedure a surgeon can do. He thinks he is god's gift to medicine. He is a lousy doctor with really inflated gay ego, he is a charade! . Flexees brand products are much better. If you see his website, he changes it around all the time in case he gets sued for fraud and misrepresentation. I believe that the show Doctor 90210 on "E" is responsible for promoting a doctor like him as if he was reliable. I think underneath all that gay laughter, Dr. Rey is really a loner and miserable individual.

[i got a "consultation" from Dr. Rey]

So, the other day, i drove all the way from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles for my consultation with the infamous "dr." rey, that i had to book 3 months in advance.

Upon arrival, i felt like i was in a porno shop rather than a "dr.'s" office. All over every wall was covered in tabloid magazines that dr. rey had appeared in, and pictures of fake boobies that he's done everywhere. Then on the plasma was dr. rey talking to old ladies with saggy boobies about reconstructing them.

My appointment was scheduled for 5:30, and i realized upon entering the overcrowded waiting room, that there were still patients from his 3:30 waiting. I was not seen until 8:30, and left to get dinner down the street half way through.

When i finally got seen into the examining room, i undressed and put a robe on and wait for another half hour for him to arrive. While waiting, i was exposed to yet another flat screen of Dr. Rey doing his nasty surgeries, and the trashiest pictures of porno looking models on cheap magazine covers like "black fantasy" with boobs that he's done.

Finally, he came into the room with his little hoochy looking asian side kick. I asked her to leave, but then he was like "if she leaves i'll get a 4 million dollar law suit". so she stayed.

The whole time he examined my body, he made sexual comments toward me like "you are delicious" and " your boobs are delicious" and all this shit, and told me basically i was crazy for wanting plastic surgery. He literally took about 5 minutes MAX looking at me, then left the room.

Then i met with him in his office with him and my mom, which was covered in phony diplomas. I thought they were real at the time, but my mom was skeptical. There were ones from harvard, and all sorts of shit, but i now know that he did not graduate from harvard, and is not even a board certified plastic surgeon.

The whole time in his office, he showed me and my mom disgusting pictures of plastic surgery gone bad, nasty scars, burnt off nipples, and all sorts of nasty shit, and asked me "is this what you want to happen to you?" and continued to tell me my breasts and legs were delicious, and "don't worry mom, kids are just crazy at this age." (I'm 20). He then started graphically telling me that certain nerves can be damaged during surgery that prevent your pussy from getting wet. Then he kept telling my MOM how "delicious" i was "and I say this not as a doctor, but as a man."

I couldn't even believe this guy was a doctor. He was so unprofessional, so crazy, and seemed like a total cook. I feel like I wasted so much time and money and gas for nothing. Me and my mom were talking about what a quack he seemed like and that we couldn't believe what happened.

I felt like i was stuck in the Willy Wonka of plastic surgery's office. He was so flamboyant and tooty fruity and creepy, it was not even a joke, but in the tackiest way possible, like he picked up the royal blue and gold kerchief that was sticking out of his suit pocket from the local thrift shop. I felt liek i was stuck on the set of a porno gone terribly wrong.

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