There is a version of medicine where the answers are clean and the path makes sense. Then there is the version Dr. Dustin Portela and Austin Lee actually live, where the most honest conversations happen not with patients, but with themselves.
Part 2 of the "Would You Do This?" series trades last week's clinical hypotheticals for something rawer: what these two providers genuinely think about the career they chose, and whether they would do it again. Would they leave medicine tomorrow if they didn't need the money? Both said no, but the reasons behind that answer say more about purpose than paycheck. Would they recommend medicine to their own kids? More complicated, and more honest, than either expected to say out loud.
They get specific. Dr. Portela has done his own Botox, biopsied himself, and once performed a CO2 laser on his own face and posted the whole thing. Austin does cosmetic procedures on himself too, though he draws the line there. From that, the questions turn more reflective. Would you go back and say something differently to a patient? Austin recalls accidentally saying "cancerous" in front of a six-year-old's mother early in training and watching her face change. Dr. Portela talks about learning too slowly that you do not have to be everything to everyone, a lesson that cost his family during the years he was handing out his personal number and returning to the clinic after hours.
The episode also surfaces a "Did You Know" worth repeating: drinking water does not hydrate your skin. Dry, flaky skin is a lipid barrier problem, not a hydration problem, and the fix is topical.
The closing question is one both hosts found genuinely hard: what does training actually prepare you for versus what you figure out on your own? The science, you can study. The art of making someone feel seen takes years of failing at it first.
Product of the Week: The Anti-Aging Bundle at shop.drdustinportela.com, featuring the Body Retinol Cream for crepey skin, collagen support, and age-related thinning.
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