The Doctor Who Performs Facelift Surgery Best in the World

Hello, I’m Park Seong-hyeok of Nuneopbo Plastic Surgery.

In 2024, at what others might consider a slightly late point,

I became the chief director of a plastic surgery clinic in Gangnam.

These days, isn’t it trendy to give up training and quickly

set up a private practice?

But perhaps because of my personality, which leans a little toward perfectionism,

trying to shorten the time spent learning

did not fit my standards.

In this post, a little differently from usual,

I’d like to talk about why, as a board-certified plastic surgeon,

I ended up focusing on eye surgery and lifting surgery,

and also introduce my connection with

the master of facelift surgery,

Dr. Marten.

As a resident who wanted to be good at facial contouring and orthognathic surgery

In fact, from the moment I entered medical school,

I wanted to major in plastic surgery,

and among that, I wanted to do facial bone surgery.

Maybe because my face is a bit long

(it’s a secret that my nickname in 10th grade was "horse-faced," haha),

I felt that it offered the most dramatic and fundamental improvement

among plastic surgeries.

The fact that I went through the notoriously difficult internship

twice🤯🥶😡😭 may have been enough for heaven to hear my earnest wish...

As the saying goes, do your best and leave the rest to heaven,

I began my residency at a place where Korea’s best orthognathic surgery expert was working.

I had once been deeply impressed by an article about him in the past,

and to think I would receive direct training from him!!!

I endured the difficult residency life with the dream

that if I kept going like this,

I would become an outstanding bone surgery specialist in Korea.

2015 AO Workshop

But then the mentor I respected

suddenly gathered the residents and,

calling it the future market we should be prepared for,

began having residents present weekly lectures on middle-aged eye surgery and facelift surgery.

And at that time, I finally felt like I was

🐣hatching out of an egg🐣.

Personally, I had always liked him a lot,

but the lectures themselves were also so clear and entertaining.

So the weekly morning seminar at the time

became something I looked forward to very much,

and my life after work on weekdays

was spent looking up related papers

and doing pre-study and review,

because I did not want to miss even a little of what my mentor said.

Maybe the foundation of my current study habits

was formed back then.

At the time I didn’t know it, but looking back now, I had as many as three respected mentors^^

But even though my mentor gave lectures on lifting surgery,

I could not easily let go of my long-held attachment to orthognathic surgery,

and while reading books and papers,

I even joined online orthodontics lectures instead of relying on dentist friends,

and I could not give up the dream of becoming an orthognathic surgery expert who could perform STO directly without the help of orthodontists.

But reality was a bit different from what I wanted.

Unlike Korea in the 1980s and 1990s,

cases of facial fractures caused by traffic accidents decreased sharply,

and as soft tissue surgeries such as breast cancer reconstruction became more prominent,

I spent most of my residency period doing surgeries involving the skin, fat, and muscles.

Graduation photo from residency

After finishing residency, at the crossroads of deciding my next step,

I chose to stay at the university

to build a stronger foundation in reconstructive plastic surgery...

With Yoshimura, a master of fat grafting

During my time as a fellow and clinical assistant professor,

I encountered many parotid tumor cases

(✱Parotid tumor surgery and facelift surgery

have many technically similar aspects)

I was able to gain experience with more difficult and complex cases

than in private practice, where aesthetic plastic surgery is the main focus.

During my time as a clinical professor

In particular, the anatomical experience and surgical delicacy

that I could not have built through aesthetic surgery alone

were developed during this period.

Experience at a plastic surgery clinic specializing in middle-aged cosmetic surgery

But because I had always longed for aesthetic plastic surgery,

I eventually entered private practice at a somewhat late age.

The clinic where I worked had a very large number of middle-aged plastic surgery cases...

A facelift procedure being performed

That place was busy every day,

but above all, unlike a large factory-like plastic surgery clinic,

I was able to see postoperative progress myself as a doctor

and take photos directly, which allowed me to grow the most.

The experience from that period

recently shone through in an SCI journal as a sole-author paper.

An SCI paper on middle-aged eye surgery

But during that time...

I had many concerns about the results of facelift and neck lift surgery.

Examples of facelift and neck lift procedures (Director Park Seong-hyeok)

The clients were satisfied...

but I still felt unsatisfied.

I thought I could do better.

So

I looked up many papers and surgical videos,

asked senior doctors for advice,

and before important surgeries, I mentally rehearsed how I would perform the operation the next day...

I spent quite a long time thinking about it.

Then I came across a book that upgraded my surgical results even further..

Dr. Marten, the doctor who performs the world’s best facelift surgery

That book was the last textbook published during the lifetime of Dr. Connell,

who was revered as the Michelangelo of facelift surgery.

And

in a paper I had read during my facelift study days,

the results were so good that I had read every paper written by Dr. Marten,

and I encountered him again in Connell’s book.

(Marten was Connell’s student, so he wrote some of the chapters.)

The paper through which I first came to know Marten: I later trained at his clinic and got his autograph^^

Especially regarding neck lift surgery,

Dr. Marten went beyond the conventional technique of simply tightening the platysma muscle

Platysma muscle: a muscle that extends from the collarbone through the neck to the jaw.

and was one of the few plastic surgeons in the world who also removed fat and salivary glands beneath the platysma.

A view of lifting the platysma and removing deep fat

A view showing removal of salivary glands and fat located deeper than the platysma (source: Marten’s paper)

And

because his surgical results were so astonishing to anyone who saw them,

I wanted to copy everything about Marten,

so I contacted Dr. Marten directly

and was graciously invited to his clinic.

Training at Marten Clinic in San Francisco

Before departing for San Francisco in 2022

Because of COVID, the departure process and paperwork were very strict,

but that did not stop my determination to learn,

and I even resigned from my familiar workplace

to go for the training.

America’s rising hot star, Dr. Dino Elyassnia

Although it was a short period, Dino and Tim

passed on even the subtle details that cannot be captured in a book

about how to perform neck lift surgery safely,

making it a very meaningful time.

A view of Union Square seen from Marten’s office

Opening Nuneopbo Plastic Surgery

But...

in Korea, there were very few surgeons who understood the neck lift techniques I had learned.

Most reactions were,

"Do you really need to go that far with surgery?"

....

The mindset of a bullpen pitcher throwing 160 km/h

But I believed that my philosophy and direction

would bring better results for clients,

so I opened my clinic earlier this year.

The name of the plastic surgery clinic is

Nuneopbo Plastic Surgery,

because I wanted to communicate clients’ hopes and anxieties on the same level

while also offering suggestions with a better perspective.

And as time passed,

one day when every day felt like a battlefield,

he came to Korea.

Reunion with Dr. Marten

Dr. Marten visiting a Korean academic conference in 2024

After the San Francisco training,

just as new questions arose from the surgeries I had been performing,

Marten visited Korea for a lecture held there.

A pleasant dinner as a couple

In fact, his lecture at the conference hall

was not very new to me,

because it was already all in his papers or

had been covered during my San Francisco training.

But what made his visit meaningful to me

was that the advice he gave me while looking at my cases in a private setting

was more valuable than any conference or lecture,

and simply hearing his explanation made me feel upgraded

and filled with confidence.

Taking on a new frontier with neck lift surgery

In the Gangnam plastic surgery field,

double-chin liposuction

or neck liposuction are very common procedures.

Bilateral platysma tightening, often called double-chin muscle binding, was also already a popular procedure.

But among so many plastic surgery clinics in Gangnam,

the ones that remove deep fat beyond the platysma

and perform salivary gland removal

still seem to be few.

Neck lift surgery is still unfamiliar to many people,

but through a small incision under the chin,

it improves the double chin,

removes salivary glands to refine the jawline,

and tightens the neck line by binding the muscles to make it sharper.

Progress 4 days after a Nuneopbo mini neck lift

Because the contour of the neck can look different depending on posture,

Dr. Connell, who was highly skilled at facelift surgery, argued that one should assess excess fat and the platysma through a side view with the head lowered.

Unfortunately, in Korea, places that evaluate even this far are still rare.

Nuneopbo Plastic Surgery plans to actively promote mini neck lift surgery,

not only for those dissatisfied after double-chin liposuction,

but also so that they can have a beautiful neck and jawline even when the neck is bent forward.

Nuneopbo mini neck lift, day 4

We will also work to create natural results with no scar concerns,

while allowing facelift and neck lift surgery to create synergy.

1 day after facelift and neck lift (front)

1 day after facelift and neck lift (45 degrees)

1 day after facelift and neck lift (90 degrees)

1 day after facelift and neck lift (head lowered)

I’ll conclude this post with the teaching of Dr. Marten,

the doctor who performs facelift surgery best in the world.

To achieve good results in facelift surgery,

you must first learn how to do neck lift surgery well.

Timothy Marten