Inside Lickstein Plastic Surgery – Where Palm Beach’s Quiet Money Goes for a Refresh

Tucked away in the office parks along PGA Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens is a specific type of building. Beige, low, and nearly unnoticeable from the road. You can learn more from the cars in the lot than from the signage. There are Mercedes wagons, a few Range Rovers, and occasionally an older Lexus driven by someone who obviously has nothing to prove. One of these buildings houses Lickstein Plastic Surgery. After investigating the practice for a while, I got the impression that the address is doing a lot of quiet work.

Board-certified and trained at Harvard, Dr. David Lickstein is the type of surgeon whose resume looks just like it would for someone charging Palm Beach prices. What’s more intriguing is what the practice has decided to construct around him. An on-site operating room was added last year, which is a sign of the kind of long-term thinking you don’t often see in cosmetic medicine. The majority of these surgeons refer their patients to outpatient surgical facilities located throughout the city. It’s different to bring the OR in-house. It has to do with privacy, control, and the tacit knowledge that those entering these doors don’t want to be seen sitting in a hospital waiting area.

It’s important to note that the practice currently goes by two names. The scalpel work is handled by Lickstein Plastic Surgery, while the rest is handled by Selah Aesthetics, the rebranded medical spa division. The medical spa operates independently and is located in a separate suite at Lake Victoria Gardens, a short distance away. It’s a clever structural division that keeps Botox traffic and surgical consultations apart. Treating patients who come in for laser treatments or filler maintenance as potential surgical candidates tends to turn them off.

Reviews are generally positive but not always so. With seventeen reviews, Yelp’s rating is four stars, while Google’s rating is stable at 4.5. Several reviewers specifically name certain employees. Crystal in follow-up; Trish in pre-op. Christina is a medical assistant. In cosmetic medicine, this level of detail in reviews typically indicates a practice where the front-of-house staff genuinely stick around, which is more important than the brochures acknowledge. The long, quiet weeks of recuperation, when patients are at their most nervous, are handled by nurses and PAs, but surgeons receive the credit.

Since the name keeps coming up, there is another Lickstein that is worth mentioning. The owner of Elle Aesthetic Arts and Plastic Surgery in Ashburn, Virginia, is Larry H. Lickstein, who is also board-certified and affiliated with ASPS. Although the two function independently, there is an intriguing halo effect created by their shared surname. The implicit suggestion of a family tradition in the field benefits both practices, and patients looking for one sometimes find the other.

The practice’s place in the larger Palm Beach cosmetic ecosystem is more difficult to determine. Miami continues to dominate Instagram feeds and headlines with its dramatic before-and-after photos and famous surgeons. The game at Palm Beach Gardens is more subdued. Subtlety, or what the industry sometimes refers to as “the well-rested look,” is what the patients here typically desire, and Lickstein appears to be built around rather than against that aesthetic preference. It’s unclear if that positioning will endure as a younger, more overtly cosmetic-friendly generation enters the market. The tactic seems to be effective for the time being.