My World

My name is Dominik Ludwig Feinendegen. My parents are Professor Dr. Ludwig E. Feinendegen (MD), expert for nuclear medicine and Mrs. Jeannine Georgette Feinendegen, born Gemusesus, a descendant of the Gemuseus-Geigy family from Basel.

I was raised and educated in many places all over the world, just to name a few, I was living in Brussels, New York, Basel, and Paris.

This sense of internationality which was already laid in my cradle, has also influenced my professional life. I read medicine and conducted my specialist training amongst others, in New York, Houston (Texas), London, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Marburg and Berne.

Therefore, an international mind, heart and attitude is a strong characteristic of my personality. This spirit of internationality and open-mindedness is reflected today in my international research projects, the frequent active participation in international conferences and in the clientele of my patients who come to see me from all over the world.

My grandfather has greatly shaped my childhood and laid the foundation of my love and my respect to nature and animals.

Thanks to this bond to nature and animals, I am able to continuously stock up on power, vigour, energy and motivation for my work and my patients. This connectedness to the great outdoors and nature itself makes me feel relaxed from daily life whenever I need it.

In summer, my family and I enjoy hiking in the beautiful, breathtaking scenery of Switzerland and enjoy the general splendour this country has to offer.

During winter, we enjoy going skiing in the mountains and relax while strolling along wintery roads and valleys.

Apart from that, I very much enjoy going windsurfing in summer in foreign waters and shores and exploring new cultures and countries.

If somebody asked me the simple question what kind of man I am, my answer would be simple:

At first, I am an enthusiastic, highly-motivated aesthetic and reconstructive surgeon, doctor and philanthropist.

Secondly, I would state that I am a horse and dog lover. I am grateful and humbled that I am in the position of being able to spend time on weekends with our dogs and horses, alongside my dream job of being a plastic and reconstructive surgeon.

The love and respect for animals provokes me not to use any medical products in my clinic and practice which were produced and developed by employing and conducting animal trials. Therefore, I have advocated and plead for the development and production of botulinum toxin without animal trials in our specialty society for Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery in Switzlerand (SGAC), already back in 2007.

My family are the most important thing in my life. Therefore, I try to spend as much time as possible with them and to value every minute I do have with them. My wife Sandra supports me in any questions and challenges of life with advice and deeds. Whenever the opportunity is given, you could get to know Sandra in my clinic, as she supports my team and I whenever we need her support and advice.

It is my strong conviction that it is a necessity and a prerequisite, moreover a characteristic of an excellent plastic surgeon, to continuously develop one`s skills and techniques and to never stop learning. An excellent plastic surgeon does not only apply the old-fashioned standards of techniques, but develops new, more modern techniques and challenges his boundaries for the pursuit of the well-being of his patients. This credo and conviction motivates me to conduct research and to try to improve surgical techniques and to never stop learning.

This mind-set enables me to publish variously internationally and to participate in international conferences and congresses, despite of being an independent and not university affiliated plastic surgeon. For example, amongst other projects, I currently conduct research in cooperation with the University Clinic Basel of how the “flat incision technique” FIT can be used in plastic and reconstructive surgery for the benefit of the patient and the surgical outcome.

I perceive my work as a holistic concept, not only making the body more “beautiful“, which was deformed maybe by illness or by accident or due to the signs of time, but also to take off an emotional and mental burden.

This „depth and sense“ with which I can help people who come to see me in my clinic, touches me and motivates me everyday anew. For myself and my team, every patient is a human being and the same, no matter where he or she comes from.

My love and determination for plastic surgery goes back to a defining moment in my youth. Back then, I had the great opportunity to get to know the nobel price winner and plastic surgeon Joseph Murray from Boston. He was a good friend of my father. Murray was famous for his work with organ transplants and their chances and performed the first kidney transplant in 1954. In 1990 he gained the nobel price for medicine for his ground-breaking work.

In his famous book, “Surgery of the soul. Reflections on a curious career“ Murray elaborates on how he has healed many people over the years with his surgical art who have suffered (often due to the world wars) from deformation of the face/body and who suffered from immense psychological issues. These people on which Murray operated have found their way back to family, their lifes and their jobs through the deeds of Murray.

The memory of Joseph Murray accompanies me already my whole career as a plastic surgeon.

For myself, the thought of being „a surgeon of the soul“ does not only have a fulfilling, denotation and meaning, but also gives me an incentive and a measurement for my daily work.

In awareness and in the spirit of this responsibility to create something new, a new life and contentment and therefore to heal psychological strains, I try to encounter my patients everyday. My aim is hereby to consult individually, to show off the possible and to fulfill all the wishes and imaginations of my patients.

Therefore, my team and I are committed to our work with all our heart and are always there for you.