Dr. Stan M. Valnicek

03/10/2020

You know you like what you do when you spend half the weekend reading surgical journals and watching videos from world experts. I am going to completely retool male gynecomastia chest contouring and for the ladies I am really excited about fat grafting to the backs of the hands under local anaesthetic.

04/02/2019

I spent a very educational 10 hours this weekend watching live surgery streamed from Columbia as part of the Aston Baker Global Symposium.

https://www.astonbakerglobal.com/the-surgeons/

It was fantastic to see the evolution of Dr. Alfredo Hoyos techniques over the 3 years since I visited him at his clinic in 2015. Other highlights were fat grafting to the breast in combination with implants to improve cleavage, more artistic buttock fat grafting and also liposuction under local anaesthetic. I have about 25 pages of notes and diagrams that I made watching these 5 world class surgeons operate.

08/11/2017

The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Meeting in San Diego was fantastic. A lot of focus on safety in fat grafting. We have spent 3 months since then refining our liposuction and grafting techniques. I am looking forward to the Canadian equivalent meeting in Toronto in October.

08/11/2017

Just finished the Singletrack Six day mountain bike in the West Kootenays. Rossland, Kaslo and Nelson had some steep climbing but the downhill parts made it all worthwhile. Up at 2200 meters on Seven Summits here (day 3).

07/06/2017

This year we are working on expanding our services to Croton Oil/Phenol chemical peels. A lot of patients have significant sun damage and wrinkles that are not well treated by laser or mild peels and even facelift surgery does not improve the quality of the remaining facial skin.

I recently went and spent a day with Dr. Richard Bensimon down in Portland https://www.facebook.com/BensimonCenter/
and watched him treat three patients. Richard and his anaesthetist Greg as well as all the staff at his centre are fantastic.

We have spent two months getting the supplies together and are now starting to recruit patients.

Dr. Richard Bensimon is a board-certified plastic surgeon with 35 years’ experience dedicated to the

02/23/2017

This year I am transitioning to concentrating primarily on private cosmetic surgery after 25 years of also serving the hospital system. We have recently added two fantastic young plastic surgeons to our practice who are taking over the work. I will continue to have a modest hospital based breast cancer reconstruction practice as well as looking after the cleft lip and palate kids (with my partner Dr. Scott Williamson).

I am really excited about the change and look forward to continued focus on constantly improving my patients' experience and outcomes.

06/16/2016

Off to Saskatoon for my 30 year medical school reunion. Hard to believe I was 23 when I finished and at 24 I could have started practice as a family doctor following my internship. I thought I knew it all back then. The best thing about getting older is appreciating the more subtle nuances of life and realizing that most deep questions will never be resolved to my satisfaction.

06/03/2016

Our mission to Bahir Dar is over and we treated more than 50 burn victims as well as spending the two weeks training the local surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and support staff in burn care. The team was fantastic and all the patients did well. Adil Ladak (Edmonton) and Dave Williamson (one of my partners in Kelowna) did all the heavy lifting surgically while I got to fill in as needed.

My highlight was training the local eye surgeon how to release eyelid contractures with full thickness skin grafts. Imagine not being able to close your eyelids to protect your cornea for 12 years and slowly losing your vision from the exposure. Hopefully they can now start to treat these patients acutely before their vision is compromised.

We think we are done with what we can do in terms of equipment and training in Bahir Dar for the time being. Our next goal is to raise funds to train one or two local Ethiopian Plastic Surgeons so they can provide ongoing care in our absence.

06/03/2016

Last month my partner Dave Williamson and I travelled to Denver, Colorado to work with Dr. John Millard and his staff for a second course in advanced liposuction and fat grafting. We learned a lot over the three days and really appreciated their expertise and hospitality. It was my first time in Denver and the whole region is beautiful.
With the Vaser, we are up to 30 cases now and I think it has redefined what is possible for my patients.

04/03/2016

Got into Bahir Dar today after 2 days flying and layovers. Getting our surgical instruments through customs was tricky but all good now. The rest of the team arrives Sunday and we start seeing patients Monday.

This is the sunset tonight.