Robert A. Weiss

OCULOPLASTIC AND FACIAL PLASTIC SURGEON | 51 | SOUTH LOOP

The subspecialty I work in ... primarily focuses on the eye, the tissues around the eye and the health of the eye. You look at the lids, the height of the lids, the function of the lids, the orbits, which are the bones that house the eye, and the lacrimal drainage apparatus, which is the tear drainage system.

A good result on any cosmetic procedure is a procedure where you look better, but not surgical. If someone says, "Who did your surgery?" you didn't get a good result. If somebody says, "You look rested. What are doing? You lost weight? There's something different. You look better. You look good. You look healthy." That's a good result.

We joke amongst ourselves when we see somebody who looks like Michael Jackson, or a severe change like Joan Rivers or the Meg Ryan mega-lips -- the kind of distorted, abnormal look. We among ourselves, my friends, we refer to that as the California look. That's somebody who wants to look surgical as opposed to someone who wants to look good. We strive not to achieve that look.

I have been going on medical missions around the world for about 17 years now. My speciality, because it is unusual, is in high demand.

In Bolivia, I had a little boy who was hit in the face by the hoof of a horse. It cracked the orbit and fractured the area where his tear drainage canal is. So he had chronic infections. And they have no antibiotics there, so they're busy trying to treat him with herbal remedies and the kid is constantly sick. So in 30 minutes, I can build a new tear duct and the kid is fine and can go back to a normal life.

We started an organization called the Global Medical Foundation. . . . We go on our own, volunteer our time, volunteer our skills, pay our own way, do local fund-raisers with the local community. If we're going to the Philippines, we'll hit on the Filipino community in Chicago to support us, do fund-raisers at the church.

There's nothing like the gratitude you get from an 80-year-old man whose eyelid has been bothering him for a year because it's rubbing on his eye and he's in pain. The hug is genuine. I'm showered with blessings.

I usually try not to tell [people at dinner parties] what I do. If I do tell them, usually they say, "Do I need something?"

It's hard to turn it off. I'm especially bad at a movie, and I'm especially bothersome if you're sitting next to me when I see something [on screen] that I consider not good cosmetic surgery. "Look at how they hollowed out her orbits."