Dr. Funk's Approach

Facial plastic surgery enables a physician to create and shape the features of the face and neck in a more aesthetically pleasing fashion. It allows for artistic creativity while at the same time implementing the basic principles of surgery and medicine. Each person’s face is their social fingerprint throughout this world. A rhinoplasty or facelift should not change that fingerprint, but enhance it.

Why are people intrigued by some faces and not others? What makes these faces attractive and alluring?

In effect, we are asking what defines beauty. Sir Francis Bacon said that beauty is harmony. Or, beauty is identified when different aspects of the face are in harmony, or in proportion with one another.

Others say that beauty is symmetry. However, studies show that the face has asymmetries in 95 percent of people. If one looks closely enough, he or she will notice that there are many beautiful faces with any number of asymmetries.

Lastly, people have been quoted stating that they cannot define beauty, but that they know it when they see it.

Dr. Funk feels that we cannot define beauty because it is always changing, particularly in the face. Our society today has accepted that beauty is found in all cultures and races. When you look at the aesthetic features of Caucasians, African-Americans, Latins, and Asians, they are all different. The eyes, nose, cheeks, lips, and chin vary dramatically depending on a person’s ethnicity, culture, or origins.

Fifty years ago, we would have never seen Lucy Liu, Beyoncé, or Jennifer Lopez on the cover of Vogue or voted as People magazine’s most beautiful people. But, they are all beautiful women.

Beauty has been accepted as a blend of all these features of different ethnicities and cultures. This is especially true in a community such as Houston where there is much ethnic diversity.

This is defined as koinophilia, or a love of the average. It is an average of all these different facial features that has become the allure to the human eye. Beauty is always changing because we as people are changing. Our perceptions and acceptance of beauty within different cultures are constantly changing which leads to a continually shifting idea of what defines beauty itself.

Dr. Funk’s Rhinoplasty and Nasal Surgery Philosophy

Most of us become acutely aware of our facial appearance and develop a heightened sense of body image around the time of puberty. So, as you might imagine, many of Dr. Funk’s rhinoplasty patients are of a younger age group. However, he also has many older patients who state that they have never liked the appearance of their noses.

Patients may wax and wane over their concerns about their noses or faces, but ultimately, that anxiety or unease about a particular feature will always be there.

People may comment on a lovely smile, beautiful hair, or alluring eyes, but rarely do you hear someone mention a beautiful nose. The people who do notice noses are those who are more vigilant or aware of them because of their own inherent anxieties about their noses. These are commonly the people seeking rhinoplasty or nasal surgery.

The nose should easily blend into the face and actually not be noticed. This is interesting considering the nose sits directly in the center of the face.

Patients frequently look in the mirror or in photographs and tell me that they feel as though this is not their nose– not the nose they should have been given.

Dr. Funk’s goal in rhinoplasty is to shape and create a nose that blends easily into a patient’s face with a natural unoperated appearance. It is said that a good rhinoplasty result is not seen in the nose, but actually in the eyes.

But most importantly, many of Dr. Funk’s patients after rhinoplasty state, “Yes, this is nose I should have had.” This allows their objective outer appearance to reflect those inner subjective feelings they have always had about the way their nose should look. It has also been Dr. Funk’s experience that a patient almost always forgets what his/her nose used to look like and develops a new, healthier body image in time.

Dr. Funk’s Facial Cosmetic Surgery Philosophy

Patients who are interested in rejuvenation surgery (such as facelift, browlift, or eyelid surgery - blepharoplasty) almost always present stating that they saw a recent photograph or looked in the mirror and did not feel as though this image reflects their inner self. They still have this inner vitality, vigor, and energy, yet this feeling is not apparent externally.

The objective with these patients is not to change the appearance of the face, but simply to shape and adjust different aspects of the face and neck. Dr. Funk does not look to change a patient's visage or identity.

His goal is for patients to enjoy a natural, unoperated image – a refreshed, rested, less tired look, where the outer appearance reflects a person’s inner spirit and vitality.

And it works. Time and time again, his patients tell him that after their facelift or eyelid surgery friends often comment or ask if they have recently returned from vacation, changed their hairstyle, or lost weight.