Business Spotlight:
There’s a new plastic surgeon in town, and Dr. Raja Nalluri hopes to continue his successful career in La Jolla, providing the same cutting-edge service to patients in need.
Nalluri, a board-certified plastic surgeon with more than 18 years’ experience in the field, recently moved to La Jolla and is transitioning his practice, the Nalluri Plastic Surgery & Laser Center, from its Irvine location to 1110 Torrey Pines Road.
Nalluri offers “traditional plastic surgery treatments for face and body,” he said. But what sets him apart, he added, is the wide variety of “less-invasive treatments, including lasers and radio frequency and CoolSculpting [a technique to freeze and kill fat cells] and other treatment like injectables and peels.”
Nalluri said he can focus on that range of invasive and non-invasive offerings because of the abundance of technology in his office. “I can offer patients either a variety or a combination” of treatments, he said.
Another “trademark thing that’s been really nice for me,” Nalluri said, is that he is the only provider in the practice, istering all the treatments. “I’ve been doing all the procedures; the patients in my practice have liked that feel, so they’re getting the most skilled person doing the procedure.”
Nalluri’s patients experience no wait time, he said. “I don’t run it like a factory. It’s concierge-style; you get individual attention, and appointments are spaced apart.”
In some cases, he said, “I’ve seen what can happen when people who are not the surgeon” undertake treatments. “There can be differences: unevenness, asymmetry or other complications. I’ve had to help patients who have gone elsewhere and had problems — do corrective work to help them out. So my preference is to just do it from the beginning.”
And, he said, “I enjoy what I do; I just like doing it.”
Nalluri, whose father also is a physician, said he chose plastic surgery while exploring specialties during medical school.
“I just fell in love with how much patient satisfaction I could bring,” he said. “In a lot of fields of medicine, it’s very rewarding to know [doctors are] doing a lot of good for the patient, but in plastic surgery, it’s such an amazing transformation we can take someone through.”
Nalluri said he derives happiness from “seeing how happy [the transformation] makes them, or how it gives them their self-confidence.”
The challenge of plastic surgery, Nalluri said, is that it’s “one of those fields where we take those who are ‘normal’ and change something, and that comes with risks. You’re trying to take on nature and improve upon it or change it in some manner.”
Nalluri said he navigates that risk with temporary or mild treatments that “do subtle changes over time, so as you’re treating the patient, you can tailor the treatment.”
Nalluri said the use of high-tech imaging, as well as his years of experience in the field, help him meet the challenges. “I have over 12,000 patients treated, so that experience helps me for each future patient.”
Nalluri is seeing a shift in his plastic surgery patients. “The demographic seeking treatments … is getting younger, as opposed to [traditionally] waiting until only surgical treatments are right,” he said. “Sometimes if you wait too long, surgery is your only option.”
When patients come in earlier, he said, “we can treat them with non-invasive treatments.”
Another trend Nalluri sees is the heightened use of social media sites such as Instagram and TikTok to help people choose a look. Through the use of filters or other posted imaging, prospective patients are “seeing how they want to look,” Nalluri said.
“They’re seeing it in a different way than before social media … and presenting those ideas to us,” replacing the former custom of showing a photo from a magazine.
This fits with Nalluri’s use of a 3-D imaging system that “can simulate surgical results,” he said.
Social media also has been helpful in demonstrating various treatments. “We’re able to engage with people,” showing what a treatment looks like via video posts on several apps, he said. “You can almost get a live preview.”
The initial consultation with Nalluri is free, either in person or via a televisit on a smartphone.
For more information, visit nalluri.com, @nalluriplasticsurgery on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok and @nalluriplastic on Twitter.
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