Beyond Skin Deep

An innovative new cosmetic center takes a holistic approach to cultivating beauty

WRITTEN BY Conan Milner

In the ancient world, beauty was defined by harmonious proportion, where all elements combined into a satisfying, soul-stirring balance. It was an ideal to aim for, and a virtue to embody.

Today, there is a saying that beauty is only skin deep. With this notion, it’s no wonder why we see the pursuit of beauty as something vain and shallow, sometimes even ugly. But whatever happened to the more substantive and transcendent aspects of beauty that our ancestors believed were found beyond the superficial? A new plastic surgery clinic wants to help patients find it.

The project began with a grand goal: create a cosmetic surgical center with a deeper approach to aesthetics. Dr. Jingduan Yang has been working the past year to realize this vision.

Yang is no stranger to running a practice. He is currently the CEO of Northern Medical Center, located in New York’s Hudson Valley. The center is a multidisciplinary, integrative facility that features both primary and specialty care, such as traditional Chinese medicine, pediatrics, sports medicine, and more.

Holistic Beauty

Like Northern Medical Center, Yang holds a combination of medical specialties that lend to his holistic mindset. He began his medical career as an acupuncturist—he’s a fifth-generation practitioner of Chinese medicine—and then became an attending neurologist. Later, he was board certified in both psychiatry and integrative medicine.

Yang said he never imagined that his career would branch into the realm of cosmetics. But he wanted to find a way to help people transcend the often shallow reputation of the beauty industry, and embrace something more substantial. “We want to make a paradigm shift to help people to become healthier, happier, and more beautiful,” Yang said.

The new clinic, called SY Aesthetics, is set to open later this year. Dr. Jeffrey Yager is one of the surgeons on the team. Last year, Yager was set to retire from a 26-year career in plastic surgery because he felt his job had become tedious. But Yang’s idea gave Yager new inspiration for his profession. He realized that there were elements that his previous work had been missing.

“Technically, my skills were such that I could repeat excellent results. But what I found frustrating was I could get the same result on several different people

LEFT Common herbs in traditional Chinese medicine: goji berries, dong quai (female ginseng), dong gua pi (winter melon peel), zhi zi (gardenia seeds), rougui (cassia bark), and dang shen (codonopsis root). They are used to regulate energy imbalances in the body, which can lead to a healthier, more radiant complexion, according to Dr. Jingduan Yang.

RIGHT Ginseng is known to have anti-inflammatory properties, boost brain function, and relieve stress.