27. Why Mentorship Matters in Plastic Surgery | The H/K/B Fellowship Experience with Dr. Harley Moit

Behind every great surgeon is training, mentorship, collaboration, and a commitment to getting better. In this episode, Dr. Bill Kortesis and Dr. Gaurav Bharti sit down with Dr. Harley Moit to talk about the H/K/B aesthetic surgery fellowship, what it means to train the next generation of plastic surgeons, and how mentorship shapes surgical skill, judgment, precision, and patient care. They also discuss what patients should know about fellows in the operating room, why collaboration can improve outcomes, and how young surgeons continue growing long after fellowship ends.

Dr. Harley Moit is a plastic surgeon at H/K/B Cosmetic Surgery in Charleston, South Carolina – Mount Pleasant and a former H/K/B aesthetic surgery fellow. His training includes general surgery residency at the University of Illinois at Peoria, plastic surgery residency at Indiana University, and advanced fellowship training in facial, breast, and body cosmetic surgery at H/K/B.

Connect with Dr. Moit:

• Harley Moit, D.O. at H/K/B Cosmetic Surgery, Charleston, SC – Mount Pleasant

Resources mentioned:

• ASAPS Fellowship Program - Advanced Cosmetic Surgery Training at H/K/B Cosmetic Surgery

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Why fellowship training can help young plastic surgeons build confidence, technical skill, and sound surgical judgment
• What patients should know about the role of fellows in surgery and how H/K/B maintains high standards of care
• How mentorship, collaboration, and open case discussion help surgeons continue improving throughout their careers

Welcome to HKB Uncut: the Health, Knowledge, and Beauty Podcast. On this show, Dr. Bill Kortesis & Dr. Guarav Bharti unpack the newest techniques and trends in cosmetic surgery, how to tune out the social media noise to make empowered decisions about your appearance, and what you need to know before you book a procedure. 

Dr. Bill Kortesis and Dr. Guarav are board certified plastic surgeons and Co-Founders of HKB Cosmetic Surgery, an award-winning practice with eleven locations across six states. 

Connect with HKB: 

• Website
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• Before & After Gallery
• Blog
• TikTok

Transcript

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Doctors Rosen, Dr. Baker, and Dr. Cow were a very close second. Oh. Stephanie Cleveland's gonna kick your US. He's tied for first. Y'all three are first. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I see, I see, I see, I see. Welcome to HKB Uncut, the health, knowledge, and beauty podcast. On this show, we unpack the newest techniques and trends in cosmetic surgery, how to tune out the social media noise to make empowered decisions about your appearance, and what you need to know before you book a procedure. I'm Dr. Bill Cortestis. And I'm Gorov Baharty. We are board-certified plastic surgeons and co-founders of HKB Cosmetic Surgery, an award-winning practice with 11 locations across six states. In other words, when it comes to aesthetics and cosmetic surgery, we've pretty much seen it all, and we want to share our knowledge and unique approach to aesthetics and beauty with you. Whether you're interested in cosmetic surgery for yourself or want to separate fact from fiction in the plastic surgery world, we hope you'll tune in each week. We're going to have the honor of talking about mentorship in our field, specifically in aesthetic surgery, talk a little bit about the fellowship, and uh have my brother from another Dr. Cortez is here with me. Dr. Moitt. Always a pleasure. Pleasure to meet you. Uh, we've been doing the fellowship at HKB for quite a while. Um 20 plus years? Yeah, more than that. Joe's been doing it forever. Joe Joe Hunstead, the kind of the senior founder emeritus at this point. Um, but yeah, I I kind of uh just stumbled on to this when I came on. Um Joe already had the fellowship program, and I knew I enjoyed teaching, but I'll I'll tell you, G, like I I really enjoy having kind of the fellows around um in so many different ways. Um it's it's very rewarding. I think the ability to teach folks makes you know the information and the material that much better. I think that's true. And I think also they are always asking you new stuff and like kind of making you question what you're doing. So I think the fellows honestly kind of teach them are they either push you to learn more stuff or teach and adjust. And so it's a great relationship. You know, Harley, you know, it it'd be interesting to understand how and why did you do the HKB fellowship? So I knew once I knew I liked doing plastic surgery, that I wanted to be on the more aesthetic side of things, and I knew you could go out right out of doing plastic surgery residency and do that. Um, but you were going to be behind the eight ball a lot, and you needed to be with people who were on the cutting edge and were gonna teach you more advanced techniques and technologies. Um that was my big reason for wanting to do the fellowship, and you guys having a wide swath of different kinds of attendings and different specialties, if you will, um, were gonna give me a very broad education. So, what about HKB? Did you love the fellowship primarily? And then what brought you to the point of saying, hey, I like these guys enough, I kind of want to work with them a little bit longer. So the fellowship I really liked because there was such a a broad array of surgeons. Like obviously, you guys do a lot of rest and body, body contouring versus purely aesthetic versus functional. And there was Dr. Cow who did a lot of head and neck things. Um that was the thing that drew me into the fellowship, was I knew I'd get a very broad education um and a lot of it. Um I equate it to drinking from a fire hose, just trying to keep in as much as you can. Um and then staying on with HKB was I I love the the camaraderie and the collegiality that HKB had. That if I ever had a question of, you know, I have this patient that has this issue, what do you guys think? This is my plan. Am I crazy for this or is this reasonable? Can you give advice? And you know, it's been amazing. Yeah, you know, I I love getting um, I'm not gonna lie, I love getting the calls from fellows. Like I love talking to you when there's there's something that you're doing, you have a question, whether it be something super small or complex. You'd think it would be annoying, but it's not the case at all. You know what I mean? No, it's never annoying. I actually love that you still uh feel that we can help you. We right? I don't love the ones who just disappear, though. So if you're listening, reach out, say hi, let us know you're alive and breathing. Give us a hug every now and then. No, um who who taught you the best, Dr. Moitt? I'd like to know which which uh which which attending here was numero uno, besides me. It's a three-way tie. I'm gonna take myself up. It's a three-way tie, and Dr.s Rosen, Dr. Baker, and Dr. Cow were a very close second. Oh, Stetter Cleveland's gonna kick your, you know what? She's tied for first. Y'all three are first. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I see, I see, I see, I see. I got you. I got you. No, um, you know, one of the things I do remember about you is that you know, we we learned about you through people that we know and and care about and trust a lot. Um talk to us about kind of the genesis though of how you got to hear about us and know about us. Um so I I go way back. Uh so when I was in general surgery, first year of general surgery, at that time, didn't even know if I wanted to do plastics. I was I was still very much into being a general surgeon. Um there was a new plastic surgeon that was starting back in Peoria, Illinois, um Bobbis Ramos, and he had actually done the HKB Fellowship. Babus Ramos. He did a lot of really good work, and I appreciated that he did good work. That's about as far as that went. I knew he did good work, and then I knew I wanted to do plastics, and so I got into Indiana, and once I was at Indiana, I knew I loved plastics, but I really loved aesthetics. And there was a uh community plastic surgeon there, Dr. Bruce Venata, and when I mentioned I wanted to do aesthetics, and I was you know looking into the match and whatnot, he said, you know, if you can get into HKB, you should definitely try and go there, because he he said there's in his exact words were there's not many people that I would consider a hero, but Joseph Hunstab was one of those. And he's like, if you can go there, all of them are of the same cloth, so you'll try and go there. And so everything just lined up perfectly, and I got to have the great pleasure of working with you guys. Well, that's uh we love that. You know, we actually just all of us are coming back from ASAPs, our big national meeting, so we spent time with Bruce. We gave a talk with Bruce, and then we also saw the world world famous Bob Isramas. I just love his suits. Yeah, he's got the most amazing suits. He's he's sponsored by Gucci Milan. Uh gee, I actually got a question for you, bud. Like obviously, we we've been doing this for a long time. We love to teach, we love the fellowship, we love giving back. Uh-huh. Let's take it from the patient's perspective. Do you think it sets HKB apart to have the fellowship? What about what as a patient should they be thinking about when they come in? Hey, is my fellow gonna do my case? And do I need to be worried about this? Like, how how is that working from the patient's perspective? Yeah, you know, that's a good question. You know, I I think number one, first and foremost, you know, uh at HKB we all pride ourselves on you know helping people achieve their personal best and taking care of the patient, taking care of the team. Um so when it comes to the patient outcome standpoint, I mean, we have we are so hyper-vigilant and anal about everything regarding their patient care. And so when somebody does surgery and the plastic surgeon is doing surgery and doing a big body contouring case, for example, and there's a lot of areas to close, they're always getting help. Most of the time that help is from a like a scrub or a first assist. So that's like a a scrub tech in the operating room or a nurse. And so you're always they're always getting help. So our plastic surgeons who are working with us are helping us, they're first assisting with us, but we're also working together at this high level, this cerebral level, just to make sure like technically we're we're doing uh the best that we can. Um, and then we're educating while we're doing it, but also they're helping technically, you know, help complete the case and perform these closures in a timely and efficient fashion in a highly remarkable way. We're your surgeon's always doing your surgery. There's nobody else doing your surgery other than your surgeon that's assigned to you. But your surgeon always has people assisting, and that's that's essentially what happens. And Harley can tell you, you know, we're working with all of us, like we're so crazy anal about how and what we're gonna do for our patients, but it definitely elevates the quality. I mean, how often, you know, we none of us will let a patient leave the room or even a bad stitch stay and if we don't like that stitch. Somebody's gonna be like, That doesn't look good, take that out, redo it. So I think that the quality that patients get is higher. Every once in a while we'll have someone say, you know, I don't want a fellow in the room. I'm like, Are you sure? Because it's honestly better if they're in the room. And like they actually help, you know, us do everything just goes smoother. They're part of the team. So that's my philosophy. I when I you know it's amazing when I've had surgery myself. I know you've had surgery, and I went to places that had um or you know, had individuals do my surgery that had a fellow, and I told them all the same thing do what you normally do. Exactly. Keep it how you normally do it. Like I wanted to be vanilla. I want you to fly, I want you to fly vanilla the plane exactly how you do it every day. Don't veer courses based on my requests because I don't know what you do. Yeah. Uh I actually think it is a it it is an elevated part. You know, all the major institutions, you know, the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, uh all these big academic places that we have around here, all have residencies and fellowships, right? It's our obligation to give back and to train the future of our field. And we want them to have all the tools necessary to be able to take care of the future generations appropriately. And you're right, though. We're the ones doing the case, we're the ones taking care of the patient, we're the ones making sure that everything is is exactly the way we want to do it. And I think there's this concept, and you know, Harley, you can speak on it too, that that's what mentorship is. And I think that, you know, it it has to exist in aesthetic surgery as well because it drives innovation, it drives progress. You know, it's like working with you know someone who's at a different phase of their career and kind of bringing them up, but also they're gonna bring new concepts and ideas. And like that's what happens. Like we have the talent that's within, like you, like the rest of our surgeons, they're incredibly talented. Some of the stuff they do, I'm like, oh my gosh, how is that possible? And um that's that that's the ecosystem and infrastructure that we have now where we can just drive that kind of um you know advancement, and that's through working together, helping each other, and and then talking about cases with each other and just getting, you know, what we you know, a lot of our legends may not realize, but we all you know don't understand the hospital. That concept of curbside consult, you know, you know where you kind of curbside somebody, hey, I need to run this by you, let's go over this, this, and this. And every once in a while, somebody will say two or three words, it changes everything, and you you adjust your plan, and you know, it it really can impact things. Yeah, I mean, I I'm pretty proud to be a part of this group. I mean, we have world experts, world experts in specific arenas and aesthetic surgery. You can't get that anywhere else. And and that that I think was what sets HKB apart, and I think it's our obligation to give that back to the future and mentor younger surgeons, mentor medical students, um, the future of individuals who want to get into this space. I love it. Um Harley, what based on your experience, what what is your uh uh guidance to younger docs who want to get into uh doing a fellowship that may be interested in HKB? What is your uh guide for them and how should they kind of proceed forward? I mean, it's it's hard to say it in a lot of words. It's truly do the fellowship. Like yeah, I know that going through six, seven, eight years of residency seems like a lot, and you just want to get out there. But the the leap that I made in that one year in the fellowship was worth at a minimum five, but more likely ten years that I would have gotten learning on my own out in practice. Like I know it, I know it sucks to take one more year of a fellowship salary, but do it. It will make you so much better in the long run. It's 100% worth it. And I know I know what's going through their heads. And they'll even have I mean, I had attendings that were saying in residency, you're too good, just go ahead and go out. Just learn on the fly. That's what we used to do back in the day. But truthfully, there's so much cutting-edge technology and techniques going on now. Anything you can do to get a leg up and you know, jump ahead in line, if you will, five, ten years, do it. All right, give me give me some words of advice that I I might have said to you that rings in your ears every time you do that particular case, or what if something that Dr. Behardy that is always like when you're doing that, you think about, or Dr. Cleban. Like is there one that you're like, oh my god, it always it always rings through? It's real, it's it's not even necessarily specific words. It's it's the motions. It's it's be smooth with it. Don't try and overthink it. Keep it simple, stupid, just just working through things. Because I pick things from from all of you guys. Like I do, admittedly, I do my my breast like you, I do my face and neck like Dr. Baharty, and I do my body more so like Dr. Clevan. Um, but I will pick things intermittently from any of you guys that I'm like, okay, no, no, this this thy plastic could be close more like Dr. Cortesis would do, or vice versa. Gee, let's let's throw it your way. Think about the mentors you had growing up. Is there anything that you remember from them that you're like, uh Yeah, you know, I will um there are a lot of them that that kind of have molded me into my position. I can name a couple. Um you know, my father always kind of basically told me I was gonna be a doctor. So like that he was like the mentor into that. But the thing that he always told me and made me really believe is that I can chase anything, I could be anything. And I want people to know like becoming a plastic surgeon is like one of the hardest of the hardest things. And I went to a small medical school and they said you're not gonna match, you're not gonna do this. But like fortunately, I had my dad in the back of my head saying, Just whatever you want to do, just do it. And people believed in me, you know. Um, I on a whim went and did a rotation at UNC in Chapel Hill, and they had a plastic surgery program where I went to medical school, there was no trip plastic surgery program, and I I ended up rooming with my buddy Chris Kraft, who's in Miami now, who was a I guess he's a big mentor for me. He changed my life too, because he's like, Don't do general surgery, do plastic surgery. So I'm like, okay, so I hung out with him for a month, and then I met the um chairman at the time there, or the the chief there, who was Scott Holtman, who is this incredible surgeon, just an incredible scientist, also, did a bunch of burn stuff, did a bunch of recon stuff, just did everything, did crazy stuff that I'm like, my my top blew off. I was like, what is this field? Like, I mean, it was insane. And I've talked about this before where you're doing mental flaps for sternal reconstruction, gracilis flaps for, you know, um sphincter reconstruction after, you know, anal cancer resection, and then clef flip and pallets and breast reconstruction and cosmos. I was like, all right, this is it. So then so that he was gonna be like he this guy was willing to write me letters of recommendation, do all this stuff. So he he mentored me, and then I got into I got to meet the incredible team at Wake Forest, you know, and the whole all the staff there, Lisa David, who was our program director, who's now the chairman there, you know, Malcolm Marsh, Lou Argeno, all these people there that like changed everything. And then and then it keeps the it keeps going on. There's just so many. Like I and then I met, then Bill and I stayed tight. We met Joe Hunstead, he ended up becoming a big mentor to me, and like that's why I wanted to come here because like these guys were doing things that I wasn't able to do in Tennessee, where they were pushing things forward, doing innovative things, doing bigger things, achieving outcomes that were better than I've seen anywhere else. And I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to be leading the charge also, and like let me here. And so it's like all of us are there's so many people. We we all have these stories, and you know, I I encourage everybody go seek out kind of mentorship, go seek it out, ask somebody. Don't be afraid to say, hey, can I learn from you? Yeah, go grab a cup of coffee with somebody, or in our field, hey, can I come watch you operate? And nobody's gonna say no to you, right? They actually with our plastic surgery egos, they're everybody's gonna be like, heck yeah, come come watch me operate. You really want to see me operate? Come on. You know, one of the things I loved about we share some stories about Harley because people give him a hard time, but Harley, you could tell as a detail guy. How do I how did I tell when this first guy started? This guy wears loops. So in plastic surgery, you can wear loops so you can see better. So it's like Harley's got great vision, but you can wear loops where you can wear little binoculars basically on your glasses. And you know, and that stands out to me. You know, Harley, why do you wear loops on simple stuff? Explain to the people and the listeners why are you? I think it wants to look cool personally. Well, obviously, to cool look cool is number one, but a close number two is it's it really is attention to details. Because no matter what you were doing in that surgery, you're gonna have to close an incision. And having the loops on, they're two and a half magnification. I see everything two and a half times better. So I want my closures to look as beautiful as possible. And I feel like if I'm not using my loops, it's a disservice because that's just how I think about it. There's a lot of people that don't use loops, but no, that's just the way I am. I rem I specifically remember during the first week I was at HKB, the fellowship, when people were making fun of me for wearing loops, um, Casey walked up behind me and looked at an incision and said, Well, damn, that does look perfect. Yeah, yeah, I I I want one-time closure to work. I don't want people to have to cut things out. You know, the the thing, the reason why that's funny to me, and why I brought bring that up is it's important. But I'm, you know, one of the things when we were working here in Joe Hunstead would talk to our fellows and kind of what was important is when they were interviewing, he said, meticulous closure. Like he just said, like the simplest concept, like you need to know and you have to close. Like, that's what we do. I mean, we literally close and close and close, and it needs to be as perfect as possible. And so that rain that that resonated well when I saw you wear loops because that's why you're wearing it, and to make sure you do good liposuction. Exactly, exactly. Fine details. That's right. Any parting words for our listeners on the topic of mentorship and the HKB fellowship that we want to leave here? Yeah, let's give everybody a chance. Harley, what would be your parting words on mentorship and your experience at HKB from a mentorship standpoint? You guys are amazing mentors. That's the first thing. And it it kind of goes without me even having to ask. But I knew you guys would be willing to offer me advice anytime I would ask. Um, but people out there, find a mentor. If the mentor isn't going to offer themselves up to you, ask them. They'll be a mentor. I love it when people ask me questions. I can't imagine another surgeon not wanting to offer advice and help their fellow doctor. So I get yourself a mentor if you don't have one. Uh I'm super excited to continue this fellowship program. And I I love making an impact on our future generation. It's been an honor to help train you, Harley. Hopefully, we've impacted you with some some pearls. We're we're excited to have you on our team. And I'm excited for kind of the future of plastic surgery. I think sky's the limit with what we can do and what's available to us, and we're gonna see those changes here soon. Definitely. I think the the fellowship is really special. Joe Hunts had started it and you kind of expanded it, and now Dr. Clevan Shauna is um really taking it in a in a really positive direction. And you know, I think it's uh it's just an amazing thing, and and it's a very humbling thing to get to work with incredibly talented people and um and just get to work with with people day to day and and see how they are as humans and then also how they deal with our staff because you really become part of the team. And um, you know, we were at our fellowship dinner recently, and it's like when you see them back and you see where how people are doing, they're all extraordinarily successful and um you know part of part of uh the fellowship kind of tribe that we have. And you know, when they become when they're not fellows anymore though, they're like they're like big time surgeons, so it's like it's a different deal, you know what I mean. So I I love seeing the success of folks. I mean, honestly, it gives me such joy to see it happening. It's like your kid, right? I sure you guys are all my kids, and I see it and happening, I'm like, oh my god, that's so awesome. Like one of our fellows, Bobby Ramos, we talked about him earlier, he won a big award at the at the end of the locker guy's like award. It made me so happy. It's amazing, well deserved. Now, Harley, one last thing we wanted to um touch on is that you know, not only are you um starting out as a as a plastic surgeon about to become board certified after you take your boards, um, and you're uh you're a father now, maybe a maybe another baby on the way. Yes, sir. How how how has it been kind of tackling that and being that that man over this past year? The the first year when you're in practice, a new surgeon and being a new father, it is it's difficult. Um, but it's because of balance. And I actually do specifically remember Dr. Cortez is telling me this when he started his career, he just wanted to work a whole bunch. And he said, he's like, spend time with your family, keep it balanced. He was like, I did it. I had a I am a fantastic surgeon that I wish I'd spent a little bit more time with my kids at that time. Uh I don't mean to put you out there if he said, but No, that's exactly what I said. It's it's so it that's the hard part is trying to keep things balanced because you want to be a fantastic surgeon, you want to be a fantastic father, and you're just trying to balance these things. Um but it's never a perfect time to do anything all at once. So if life was easy, no one would ever complain. You can't appreciate the good days if you don't have the bad days. So I love everything that I do, but it's it it's difficult sometimes. Well, I appreciate the honesty, and um we'll go ahead and conclude this episode. It's been great to talking to you, and um, we appreciate our listeners' time and uh welcome them to uh join us next time. Thank you very much. Peace out. Peace out, homies. Thank you for listening to HKB Uncut. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to us on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. To book a surgery consultation or med spa appointment with our team, visit our website at hkbsurgery.com or head to the links in our show notes.