How Dr. Steven R. Cohen’s Background in Medicine Influenced His Approach to Entrepreneurship

Dr. Steven R. Cohen built his reputation as a surgeon, but his most ambitious project may be the business he founded around it. Recognized among America’s Best Plastic Surgeons for three consecutive years, the highly credentialed San Diego facial plastic surgeon saw an opportunity to build a different kind of practice, and took it.

By his account, entrepreneurship was never the goal in itself; building something meaningful was. He envisioned Faces Plus as a place where scientific excellence, patient empathy and the safest, most advanced innovations in care could exist together.

“I wanted to build a practice that never stopped learning, questioning and evolving,” he says.

Beneath that, he says, has always been something more fundamental: a desire to bring a sense of beauty and poetry into the world. Whether he’s operating, painting, teaching or running the business, he believes that “science and artistry are not opposites; they’re partners.”

Spotting a gap in the market

Dr. Cohen says his business instincts materialized out of his clinical ones. His early career was devoted to craniofacial surgery and complex facial reconstruction, helping children and adults with congenital differences, trauma, and severe deformities. That work, he says, taught him to think in depth about facial anatomy, growth, function, proportion, and identity.

Over time, he realized that aesthetic surgery is, in many respects, a natural extension of reconstructive surgery. One restores what disease, trauma, or birth differences have altered; the other restores what time has changed. In both, he says, the goal is to create harmony while preserving the individual’s identity.

As his understanding of facial aging deepened, Dr. Cohen became increasingly interested in applying the same analytical discipline to rejuvenation. Rather than chasing trends or procedures with catchy names, he focused on the underlying biology, anatomy, and mechanics of aging. He says by understanding these principles, he can choose the right treatment for each patient instead of forcing every patient into the same treatment.

That same diagnostic thinking, applied to the industry around him, revealed a gap. Many practices traditionally focused on a single specialty, which could make it more difficult to address patients’ health and aesthetic goals through a coordinated, long-term approach. Building Faces Plus became an opportunity not just to practice medicine differently, but to develop a business model that helped bring several complementary areas of care together.

The opportunity, in other words, started with a patient need rather than a market trend.

Art as a competitive advantage

For Dr. Cohen, art has never been separate from his work as a surgeon. It has been a guiding value throughout his life. “It has shaped the way I see the world, the way I solve problems and ultimately the way I built my practice,” he says.

Artists, he explains, are trained to look beyond the obvious for relationships, balance, proportion, light and meaning. He brings that lens to everything from surgical planning to the patient experience. “I never wanted it to feel like a cosmetic surgery factory.”

Every blank canvas also keeps him humble, a reminder that another solution is always waiting to be found. Dr. Cohen believes painting and surgery both pursue the question, ‘How can we reveal something authentic, meaningful and beautiful without losing its identity?’ In many ways, he says, the practice is his largest creative work—a living expression of scientific rigor, artistic vision, relentless curiosity and a deep commitment to his patients.

For a founder, it’s an unusual way to define a business, and one that sets Faces Plus apart in a crowded industry, he says.

From surgeon to CEO

Even as a young surgeon, Dr. Cohen wasn’t only thinking about how to perform an operation, but about how to build an environment where every part of the patient’s experience met the same standard.

The biggest mindset shift, he says, was realizing that building and running a practice isn’t just about becoming a better surgeon. In many ways, he says, your role is about building a team, creating the right systems, and giving people the freedom to do exceptional work.

It also meant learning to think less like a surgeon and more like a CEO. He suggests that this is what separates a surgeon who owns a practice from an entrepreneur who builds one. And it starts with people. “Technologies change, markets fluctuate, but talented, committed people are the foundation of every enduring organization,” Dr. Cohen says.

Even his definition of luxury, a word much of his industry competes on, reads as a core business philosophy. Where others might think of marble floors or expensive finishes, Faces Plus deliberately focuses on something deeper. “To me, luxury is time. It’s thoughtful attention. It’s feeling heard,” Dr. Cohen says.

Inventing, investing, and listening

Throughout his career, Dr. Cohen has had an opportunity to contribute to developments in the plastic surgery field, helping create and refine new technologies and surgical devices that are designed to advance patient care and surgical outcomes.

He says his first major experience came in 1994, working with Leibinger Corporation to develop a midface distraction device. This approach contributed to the development of modern internal craniofacial distraction systems and continues today as part of Stryker’s craniofacial portfolio. 

For Dr. Cohen, that experience as an inventor shaped how he thinks about competitive advantage. Developing proprietary techniques and devices gave his practice a point of difference that was hard to replicate. Still, what motivates him is innovation that improves patient care, not innovation for its own sake. Some of his best ideas came from standing beside other surgeons in operating rooms halfway around the world. “Innovation is rarely a one-way street,” he says.

The same openness extends to his investing. One of the best financial decisions Dr. Cohen ever made, he says, came from listening to his son, who encouraged him to make an early investment in a then-emerging e-commerce platform. “It was a great reminder that good ideas can come from any generation.” Whether the idea comes from a surgeon abroad or from his own son, that willingness to listen is as much a business skill as a clinical one.

Building something that outlasts you

Dr. Cohen’s definition of success has evolved. Early in his career, it was measured by technical achievement, publications and professional recognition. Those things are still gratifying, but today he measures success by what lasts, whether that’s a device, a surgical technique, a practice culture or a former trainee who goes on to help thousands of patients. “Success is creating something that outlasts you.”

When he thinks about legacy, he says, he doesn’t think first about the surgeries he has performed or the devices he has developed. “I hope people remember how I made them feel,” he explains. Dr. Cohen hopes his patients felt seen, heard, and cared for, not just treated, and that everyone who crossed his path felt they mattered.

If Faces Plus has a lasting legacy, Dr. Cohen says, he hopes it is this: “Science, artistry, innovation and compassion are not separate ideals. They are strongest when they exist together.”


Dr. Steven R. Cohen, MD, FACS is the founder and medical director of Faces Plus, a facial plastic surgery and regenerative medicine practice in San Diego, California and a clinical professor of plastic surgery at the University of California, San Diego.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not substitute for professional medical advice. If you are seeking medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, please consult a medical professional or healthcare provider.

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