News & Events

Center for Anti-Aging Medicine & Cosmetic Surgery

By Rich Smith
Plastic Surgery Products Magazine, April 2000, pages 20-23

Dean P. Kane, MD, FACS, PA, performs an ample volume of breast augmentations, liposuctions, and face-lifts - all serious surgical interventions. However, Dr. Kane believes the day is coming when advances in technology will permit most such cases to be handled far less invasively. Anticipating that advent, Dr. Kane has begun the process of repositioning his Baltimore practice to where the entire field of plastic surgery may end up 10 to 20 years hence.

"I am convinced that, in the future, the plastic surgeons who are most successful are going to be those who provide what I would like to call - for lack of a better term - cosmetic medicine, which does not depend so heavily on surgery to restore youthful, healthy looks to patients," says Dr. Kane. "The future is going to be different, so I'm making sure that my practice is on the fore-front of the changes I see developing out there."

The revolution in cosmetic medicine envisioned by Dr. Kane won't be confined to technologies that already are fairly conventional, like hormonal therapy. Rather, he speculates it will include genetic treatments - everything from DNA engineered preparations for the skin to gene manipulations of the anatomy. Dr. Kane's fascination with cosmetic medicine began about seven years ago when he embarked on a search for ways to rejuvenate skin. Glycolic acid, Retin-A and chemical peels were coming into vogue, and he decided to complement cosmetic surgery with those products as a pre- and post operative regimen.

"In my eyelid - and face-lift procedures I wasn't achieving the rejuvenation effects I wanted," he says. "But once I integrated things like Retin-A into my procedures, the results were very positive. Collateral damage to the skin during surgery was minimized, and patients experienced shorter recoveries."

Not long afterward, Dr. Kane acquired an interest in his own self-improvement. He exercised more and made major modifications to his diet. Soon, he was feeling and looking better than he had in years. Inspired by the changes, he decided to develop a practice component dealing with nutrition and fitness. From there, it was a short and logical step to the present cosmetic medicine focus.

Catering to Patients

Cosmetic medicine, he is certain, will not only help his practice prosper in the future but will also change the demographic composition of his patient base.

"The more I emphasize cosmetic medicine - anti-aging therapy, if you will - the more the practice will attract men," he says of his Center for Anti-Aging Medicine and Cosmetic Surgery, which is overseen by wife Lauri Kane, RD, MPH, ScD. "There are several marketing-type studies that suggest cosmetic medicine will appeal most strongly to men. My estimate is that I could eventually have a practice with men making up perhaps as much as 75 percent of my cases. For that reason, I see cosmetic medicine opening the door to a vast new audience that previously my practice would never have had access to."

Indeed, the current majority of the practice's patients are women, mainly those between the ages of 18 and 50 who lead active lives and are striving to attain empowerment through improvement in their skin quality and body contours, explains Lauri Kane.

"To accommodate those desires," she says, "we've made this practice a doorway to the re-awakening of the human spirit of our patients, inside and out - a first step toward rejuvenating the skin, transforming patients' self image and recreating their outlook for total beauty and personal success. We're here to help them on their journey, which is why our practice reaches beyond plastic surgery into the emerging frontiers of beauty, fitness, nutrition, anti-aging and body-mind medicine."

That approach makes the Kanes' practice stand apart in the Baltimore market, but the Center for Anti-Aging Medicine and Cosmetic Surgery is distinguished in other ways as well. One of those is its empathetic care of patients.

"There are not many practices that treat their patients as attentively as we do," says Lauri Kane. "Everything - from the interior design schemes of the clinic to the talented people we have on staff - are intended to make our patients feel extremely comfortable, well cared for, and satisfied when they leave."

Convenience is part of that. Accordingly, the Kanes have established an artfully designed Internet website that offers patients the ability to log on from home or anywhere and access a wealth of information about available services and the practice's policies. The website also allows patients to exchange e-mail with the Kanes; soon there will be a chat room for patients to discuss among themselves and with the Kanes or guest professionals cosmetic medicine issues of the day.

The practice is located in the Sinai Medical Office Building on the grounds of Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. Assisting the Kanes at this site are estheticians Renda Lee Calacino, RN, and Teresa Dulong; nurse practitioner Phyllis Azman, CRNP, PA; patient-care coordinator Ramona Cartagena; receptionist Michele Harris' bookkeeper Sandee Sealing; computer specialist Kristin Valentine; and former Soviet Union Olympic team masseur Sergey Khmelevsky.

Born in Florida to parents who were successful entrepreneurs, Dr. Dean Kane lived for periods of his youth in Cuba and Puerto Rico where his father and mother had business interests. As a boy, the future Dr. Kane exhibited a keen interest in math and biological science. Later, as a high school student on the verge of entering college and contemplating his future, medicine struck him as a worthy pursuit. In college, he thought more about a career and decided to set his sights on medical school.

He received his doctorate of medicine from the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan in 1980. He finished a general surgery residency at Baltimore's Sinai Hospital five years later and, two years after that, a plastic surgery and reconstructive surgery residency at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Today, Dr. Kane is certified by the American Board of Anti-Aging Medicine, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, and a diplomate of the National Board of Medical Examiners. He also belongs to several organizations: the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, American Academy of Aesthetic and Restorative Surgery, American Academy of Wound Management, American Association of wound Care; Lipoplasty Society of North America, Northeastern Society of Plastic Surgeons, and the John Staige Davis Maryland Plastic Surgery Society.

Co-author of Chronic Wound Care: A Clinical Source Book for Health Care Professionals, Dr. Dean Kane also serves as director of The Wound Center at Northwest Hospital in the Baltimore area and is an associate clinical professor in the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Lauri Kane received a bachelor's degree in dietetics from the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1977. In 1979, she received a master's degree in public health from the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras. Her doctor of science degree was conferred on her by Johns Hopkins University's School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1985. Today she is a faculty advisor to the Department of Maternal and Child Health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, a position she attained in 1994.

The Kanes first met at the University of Florida back in the early 1970s. He was a sophomore, she a freshman. Initially, they were just friends. Later, they became a devoted couple and eventually married. For a time, however, their careers tracked in different directions.

Dr. Dean Kane had just completed his plastic surgery residency when he joined a group practice in Baltimore. He remained part of that group until 1990. At that point he entered solo private practice as a specialist in reconstructive work, later changing to a purely cosmetic focus in the wake of a reimbursement fracas with an HMO that grossly underpaid him for a complicated reconstruction procedure.

Lauri Kane, meanwhile, was employed as a health administrator with Johns Hopkins University Medical Center.

Adept at Using Media

In the early days of his solo practice, Dr. Kane wore both hats - clinician and administrator. It ultimately proved too much for him. That's when Lauri Kane decided to step in and take over the task of running the office for him. It meant having to step down from her position with Johns Hopkins, but her wish to help her husband's practice succeed outweighed any other consideration, she says.

A frugal individual, Lauri Kane kept a close watch over the expenses the practice incurred and found ways to substantially limit them. Consequently, the practice operated at a profit each and every year from that time on.

Still, in those days, the Kanes had little money to pay for advertising, so they sought as much free media as possible. Even today, that's their preferred formula for outreach. Now, the Kanes appear on local television and radio newscasts and on the pages of newspapers and magazines about every three or four months to discuss the latest advances in beauty, fitness, nutrition and health.

The Kanes have little trouble attracting media attention: in addition to being telegenic and articulate, the couple know how to package information in ways the press can't resist.

Much of what the Kanes have learned about working with their local media they owe to their relationship with the public relations director of one of the hospitals where Dr. Dean Kane has privileges.

"The hospital's PR person writes press releases for us, and he's very good at it," Lauri Kane explains. "He has taught us a lot about what the press likes and doesn't like, how to get free publicity. It's been a great partnership."

Partnership is exactly the right word for it. The Kanes benefit from the hospital's efforts at garnering publicity by having their credibility enhanced, which makes it easier to attract new patients. The hospital benefits by having a busier operating room, thanks to the increased volume of patients brought in for surgery by Dr. Dean Kane.

The Kanes estimate they draw about 200 phone inquiries from prospective new patients each time the practice is plugged on television.

When the practice was still in its infancy, it was Dr. Dean Kane alone who handled the initial consultation tendered to those prospects. But the closure rate - getting inquirers to commit to surgery - was less than optimal.

"Although Dr. Dean has an amazing bedside manner - I mean, he does things like hold the patient's hand when she's being anesthetized and again when she's coming out of it - he wasn't able during initial consultation to identify sufficiently with women's sensitivities about their looks," says Lauri Kane.

That all changed when Lauri Kane assumed responsibility for conducting initial consultations without her husband present until the very end, after the prospective patient had already more or less committed to the notion that surgery should be performed.

"Lauri is a much more skillful communicator that I," Dr. Dean Kane tells. "She has the remarkable ability to lead patients on a path of self-discovery by knowing the right questions to ask at the right moment in a consultation. She has a very creative way of helping patients recognize what it is they really need in the way of treatment without making it seem like she's criticizing.

"Every prospective patient who walks in the door comes with a pre-conceived self-image - and so they usually don't like having that self-image pierced, which is what often happens in a consultation when the doctor gives them his or her opinion of what needs to be done. That doesn't happen when Lauri conducts the consultation."

Lauri Kane says her consultative technique is not rocket science.

"The first thing I do is ask the prospective new patient about her chief complaint," Lauri Kane says. "Let's say she thinks her breasts are sagging. After I talk to her about her medical history and explain what's involved in breast augmentation, I'll then show her photographs of other women's sagging breasts. The prospective patient will eventually stop me, point to one of the photographs and confide that hers look like that. Then I'll show her photographs of what we achieved with those particular breasts. By the time I'm done, she'll be enthusiastic. That's a different response from what we'd get is she walked into the consultation and was straight out told by me or Dr. Dean that her breasts were sagging. She would then become defensive and want to get out of our office as quickly as possible."

Today, of course, breast augmentations require surgery. But Dr. Dean Kane remains confident that at some point in the future it might be possible to augment breasts with minimally invasive strategies under the rubric of cosmetic medicine.

"I really believe that we're on the cusp of a new era in plastic surgery," he says. "It's very exciting, and I'm looking forward to integrating the new technologies and techniques in my practice."

About The Author

Rich Smith is a contributing writer for Plastic Surgery Products.