Despite all the holier-than-thou attitudes on Yelp, ’86 Revelle alumni and plastic surgeon Dr. Tom Pousti has achieved the Holy Grail of consumer review site: a solid five-star rating.
Pousti isn’t only popular, he’s experienced too, with 12 years in private practice and over 10,000 surgeries—ranging from the usual tummy tucks and face lifts to the not-so-usual labial reductions, gynecomastias and otoplasties (look ‘em up) — under his belt. Oh, and he’s expensive: A boob job will run you anywhere from $4,800 to $7,300 depending on what material you want floating around in your chest.
According to the doc, who graduated with a degree in animal physiology, UCSD was his first choice, as was his profession.
Pousti said he had always wanted to be a physician, but ultimately chose to specialize in plastic surgery because of the range of procedures he’d have at his fingertips.
“The nice thing about plastic surgery is you get to do head to toe [work] — facial trauma, congenital trauma, burns, all kinds of reconstructive work, hand surgery,” Pousti said. “There’s a lot of variety and I think variety is what makes it interesting.”
With 15 years of postsecondary education to his name (and diplomas from UCSD, UCI, and Harvard), Pousti’s spent more than half of his life in school.
“You get to be an old guy by the time you get to work,” Pousti said. “But it’s definitely worth it.”
And from his comments on what he misses most about our UCSD bubble, it’s clear that Pousti’s had to endure more than his fair share of sleepless nights and cram session to achieve his current success.
“I enjoyed [UCSD’s] libraries — lots of places to kind of sit down and study,” Pousti said. “I was a pretty studious guy. I didn’t socialize as much as I would have liked to at that time.”
His advice for would-be Nip/Tuck-ers:
“Get a good start from the beginning because it’s easier to keep a decent GPA than to try to make up ground. It’s easy to get distracted when you get into college — there’s lots of pretty girls and pretty boys and all kinds of distractions. You gotta stay focused and keep your eyes on the prize.”
