‘Dr. 90210’ Goes Under the Knife

Well, not exactly, although we do subject him to the hot seat: First, so which stars have you worked on? Second, tell us about your practice. Third, so which stars have you worked on?

Dr. Gary Alter doesn’t need to show you his for you to show him yours—seeing the most private of parts is part of his job description. As one of the few doctors in the country who is Board Certified in both plastic surgery and urology, Alter specializes in the kinds of procedures that starts with a “G” and ends with an “enital reconstruction.” He’s a featured surgeon on the E! Channel reality show “Dr. 90210” as well as a frequent guest on the radio program “The Adam Carolla Show.” We spoke to the doc from his office in Beverly Hills about his profession and tried to rustle some names along the way, but Alter wasn’t blabbing… something about a license and losing it.

BLACKBOOK: It says on your website that more and more women, because of representations in the media, want surgery to modify the look of their genitals. Are you referring to pornography?

DR. GARY ALTER: Yes. A lot of women watch pornography and realize they want to look a certain way.

BB: Do women ever present you with a model vagina they wish to emulate?

GA: No. They just want it smaller. A few have brought in photos of what they like, but it’s uncommon.

BB: Have you performed surgery on any celebrities?

GA: Of course.

BB: When a celebrity walks into your office, do you feign ignorance?

GA: It kind of depends. If it’s a superstar, then I have to schedule them when there are no other patients around, otherwise they get embarrassed or it’s inconvenient for them. If they’re not superstars, I still try to get them in quick. You definitely don’t make them wait in the waiting room. If they’re a megastar you have to do them after-hours.

BB: So you’ve done work on megastars?

GA: Yeah. Listen, if it’s a megastar or somebody you respect, I like to talk to them, ask questions. But in terms of a doctor, I’ll treat them like any other patient. They get embarrassed if you don’t know who they are, depending on how big their egos are.

BB: What about your secretary [a sweet-voiced woman named Xena]? She must be tempted to tell her friends about your high-profile patients, no?

GA: Well, look what happened at U.C.L.A.—people went into Britney Spears’s medical records and they got fired. There are some big-time federal laws to protect patient privacy.

BB: Have you ever been taken aback by the appearance of certain celebrities?

GA: Out of the blue, I had one that just showed up with a laceration, but I was already in the operating room, so she had to wait. But then she got jumpy waiting, even though we put her in an exam room. She didn’t want to wait, so she left and went somewhere else. It was kind of wild.

BB: Do paparazzi stake out your office hoping to catch someone famous coming in for a quick snip?

GA: Not so much at my office, but on my street there are. There’s a nail place across from my office, and there are paparazzi out there all the time. I’ve seen Ritchie and Kardashian, and the paparazzi go nuts out there. At the offices, you don’t see it so much, but they could just turn around and start snapping photos if they want. But there are a lot of older celebrities walking around who don’t get their picture taken. It’s the 25-year olds they want, because that’s what sells magazines.

BB: The very ones you’ve helped to make beautiful.

GA: I’ve had my share.

BB: Do you ever watch “Nip/Tuck?”

GA: Yes. It’s a satire.

BB: Is there anything realistic about the show?

GA: Some elements of the surgery have a level of reality to them, but you watch it for the storyline over anything else. If any plastic surgeon acted like those guys, they’d lose their license within a week. You can’t go hitting on your patients and doing all that crazy stuff.

BB: Does being a plastic surgeon land you extra attention from the opposite sex?

GA: Not as much as you’d think. There are so many plastic surgeons here. Although, the fact that I’m a plastic surgeon and that I’m on a television show gets me more attention. 

BB: Do a lot of the patients object to being on “Dr. 90210?”

GA: Most people object because of the nature of the surgery. Either they’re embarrassed or they don’t want the attention.

BB: Do you have any more surgeries lined up for the day?

GA: I just finished one.

BB: What kind of surgery?

GA: Just some liposuction.

BB: Standard stuff, I’d imagine. What’s your favorite surgery to perform?

GA: I like doing my labia surgery—my labia minora surgery—and I like doing repairs of other people’s mess-ups, because that’s very creative, to try and reconstruct a girl so that they look good, after somebody else has kind of done something wrong.

BB: What do you mean?

GA: Well, most doctors have different techniques. Most of them, in order to reduce labia minora, just kind of trim them. That’s not what I do. I take a V out of the part that sticks out the most, which disconnects the top from the bottom, and then I stitch them together, so it remains normal in appearance, but it’s just smaller. Some doctors trim, they leave rough edges, and they take off too much—it’s asymmetrical. It could be pretty devastating to some of the girls, so I try to figure out ways to reconstruct it.

BB: Can these procedures decrease sensation for your female patients?

GA: My technique does not. It can, but it rarely does.