On Restraint: Why less is often more

The most difficult decision in medicine is often not what to do. It is what to leave alone. 

We live in a culture that mistakes intervention for progress. If something can be improved, we assume it should be.

Nature disagrees.

A tree grows because it is pruned carefully, not constantly. A garden becomes beautiful through editing as much as planting.

Faces are no different.

The best aesthetic work is often invisible. Not because nothing has changed, but because nothing essential has been disturbed.

Restraint is not the absence of action. 

It is the presence of judgment. 

That distinction interests me more every year.