I always try to ask my patients a question once they have recovered from their tummy tuck.  “What was the worst part about it?”  Expecting to hear about the pain, or expense, or recovery time, I almost uniformly hear, “The drains.  I hated those tubes trailing out of me.”  I would apologize to the patient, explaining the necessity of drain tubes to draw off excess fluid from the space between the layers that we wanted to heal back together, I was unaware of a better way. 

In February of 2009, Dr. Harlan Pollock gave a talk on drainless tummy tuck.  He demonstrated a technique of additional suturing of the abdomen which tightened and obliterated the space in which we normally put drains.  He implored us to have a little faith and some courage to try to make this operation better for our patients.  Fifteen months into this new experience, we now have patients who will never know what drains are like.  They deal with healing from surgery without having to trail drains along with them.  They get to enjoy their new abdomen a few weeks earlier.  The emotional healing is now much better, in my opinion. 

On behalf of our patients, thank you, Dr. Pollock.