A Pleasanton-based plastic surgeon with a longstanding practice in Dublin is set to become the first black president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, with Dr Steven Williams beginning his term at the helm of the organisation’s board of directors later this month.
Williams, who has served on the organisation’s board for more than a decade and leads Tri-Valley Plastic Surgery in Dublin, will become the society’s president-elect in 2022.
The Yale-trained surgeon found himself in the Bay Area after a foray into Silicon Valley that eventually brought him to the Tri-Valley, where he has lived in San Ramon and Pleasanton in the years since establishing his practice in Dublin.
“We very deliberately chose the Tri-Valley area for our practice, and the reason for that is obviously to be close to the South Bay, close to San Francisco, close to Oakland,” Williams told the Weekly. “Those are major metropolitan areas with a lot of growth.”
The central location, in addition to Williams’ reputation as a top reconstructive surgeon, has also brought a wide range of clients through the practice, which he said is also something he particularly likes about his field of medicine.
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“We obviously have patients from all ethnic backgrounds and all ages,” Williams said. “That’s the wonderful thing about plastic surgery, is that we operate on just about everybody.”
This reality contrasts with how plastic surgery is often portrayed in the media and how it is viewed by lay people, Williams noted.
“I think sometimes cosmetic surgery gets a bad rap because of the things we see on TV, but I think it’s a different form of self-care, and that’s one of the reasons it’s become popular,” Williams said. “It’s a way of taking control and changing things on the outside to match how they are on the inside.”
While Williams’ and other plastic surgeons’ doors are open to people from a range of backgrounds and with a range of motivations, he says that the feeling of deserving the kind of self-care he offers isn’t something everyone experiences equally – something that struck him after performing work on a nurse and friend of his.
“She said, ‘I want to thank you because I didn’t think it was OK for me to want this for myself,’ and that really struck me on such a deep level, that people in our society don’t feel they have the right to feel the way they want to feel,” Williams said.
During his time as president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and throughout his career, Williams has set his sights on addressing this and other inequities, and his upcoming presidency also symbolises change for the venerable organisation.
“I’m the first African-American president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, and they’ve been around for 93 years, so that’s a long time and probably a little overdue,” Williams said. “I really try to look at it as an opportunity to continue to pave the way and open doors.”
It is for the benefit of his specialty and medicine in general, Williams said.
“All medical specialties are really stronger when there’s diversity within them, and that’s because it’s important for patients to be able to interact and relate,” Williams said.
