Dr. Kiya Movassaghi’s plastic surgery office in Eugene does the work you expect — rhinoplasties, tummy tucks, and face lifts, to name a few. Ziba Medical Spa, the spa side of their practice, has an extensive menu of services including facials, vein treatments, laser resurfacing, and more. The not as typical aspect of this practice, however, is the expertise and commitment of Dr. Movassaghi to help people be happier with their bodies, including those who are dealing with cancers
Movassaghi’s credentials are extensive. He is member secretary of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, transitioning into the role of president. He is past president of the Northwest Society of Plastic Surgeons. He has served as chair of the ASAPS Membership and Symposium committees, and is an ASAPS Traveling Professor. He’s on the Oregon Cancer Alliance breast cancer tumor board, an experience that inspired his January 2021 book, “Shaping the Breasts – A Comprehensive Approach in Augmentation, Revision, and Reconstruction.” Not only that, eight years ago Movassaghi initiated Oregon and Washington’s only board-certified aesthetic plastic surgery fellowship program. He also has a DMD degree from Harvard, which he followed with a residency in maxillofacial surgery. His practice manager and wife, Niloo, is president of the Oregon Cancer Foundation.
“Since plastic surgery is reconstruction of the skin, it’s one of the only specialties that truly covers head to toe,” says Movassaghi. “The beauty of plastic surgery is we learn to shape and morph something out of nothing, essentially. If they’re missing part of their nose from cancer surgery or trauma, you have to make a nose.”
A few years ago, Movassaghi realized there was little published research on the technique of injecting fat from elsewhere in the body to shape the breast. That led to a two-year journey writing the book based on his innovative techniques. Many people think plastic surgery for the breasts is about simply reconstructing or augmenting the breast’s size. But for Movassaghi, the technique is more about developing a natural shape.
“I always analyze my own results and come up with new techniques,” he says. “Anybody can put a piece of skin on the eyelid, but can you make it look like an eyelid? That’s the artistic part of plastic surgery where you make it look like a beautiful three-dimensional structure. Many plastic surgeons can reconstruct or repair, but not everybody can shape things because shaping takes a whole new level of thinking and innovation.” Movassaghi has recently had his special techniques of breast reconstruction accepted into a national journal. Another facelift technique he has described will also be published.
Many of Movassaghi’s breast reconstruction patients often had a poor outcome from their first reconstruction and seek out his expert opinion. He tells one story from his book about a woman who had a mastectomy due to cancer. She had complications, and a bony chest anatomy, which led to suboptimal outcomes with her first surgeon. “She was very distraught, and I knew we could do a better job,” he recalls. “Now, her personality has changed and she’s happy again and on the dating scene. That brought me joy.”
Movassaghi grew up in Iran, where he was an avid soccer player in a family of physicians. As young as 10, Mossaghi would go to the hospital and work on his homework with his father in the emergency room. “Growing up, I enjoyed surgical stuff and knew I would become a physician,” Movassaghi says. “I was fascinated by the scene in the ER when I would hang out with my dad watching a patient coming in. I was always very comfortable with that.”
At 17 in 1984, he left Iran due to the Iran-Iraq War. An older brother had previously settled in Germany, so his parents sent him there. But Germany wouldn’t issue him a visa to stay, so he was ushered to Portland by an uncle living there. He received a student visa, which allowed him to finish high school. Then, he started undergraduate studies at the University of Oregon. Niloo and Kiya met in Eugene, where her family is from, and moved back here with their young sons after he developed his career in Boston following his Harvard Medical School training.
At Harvard, Movassaghi attended a talk by Dr. Joseph Murray, who had just won the Nobel Prize for performing the first kidney transplant. He spoke about treating children with craniofacial deformities in Iran, which encouraged Movassaghi to pursue plastic surgery.
Other patients that Movassaghi sees are men and women who experience a massive weight loss. “They’re uncomfortable to take their shirts off,” he says. “It gives me joy to help give them their confidence back. It’s not about vanity. It’s about confidence and comfort within their own body.”
Dr. Kiya Movassaghi
Movassaghi Plastic Surgery
Ziba Medical Spa
330 S Garden Way, Suite 100
541/686-8700
drmovassaghi.com
