By Diane Kortus
Staff Writer
NEW TAMPA — If 50 is the new 40, then 40 is the new 30. And nowhere is that mantra heard more often than in a plastic surgeon’s office.
“We have ‘Mommy Makeovers’ for women in their 30s and 40s who are done having kids, and ‘Workforce Makeovers’’ for health conscious professionals in their 50s and 60s who want to keep up with younger colleagues,” said Stanley Castor, M.D., a New Tampa plastic surgeon who grew up in Zephyrhills.
“Their body is not how they mentally feel,” Dr. Castor said of his patients, who are primarily women. “They exercise and are in good health and want to do a little something to improve their appearance.”
Dr. Castor opened his New Tampa practice two years ago after leaving The Watson Clinic, a large medical group in Lakeland where he worked for eight years and was the only plastic surgeon on staff.
Married with young children, Dr. Castor yearned for more time with his wife, Colleen, their 12-year-old twin daughters and 11-year old son. The family loves to dirt bike, snow ski and spend time at their vacation retreat in north Georgia.
The only way to make this happen, Dr. Castor concluded, was to open his own medical practice. So he left the security of The Watson Clinic and chose the New Tampa for his new office.
He liked the area’s affluent demographics and the fact there were just a handful of plastic surgeons. Also influencing his choice of location was a desire to return to the Tampa area.
Dr. Castor was born in Tampa and moved to Zephyhills when he was 12.
He graduated from Zephyrhills High in 1982, ranked third in the class. Older brother, Stephen, graduated from the school in 1981 and today is a podiatrist in Ohio. Younger brother, David, graduated in 1984 and sister, Deborah, in 1987. Their father, Abe, was pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Zephyrhills for many years.
After high school, the young Stanley Castor enrolled at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, where he met his future wife. He went on to receive his medical degree from the University Of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, completed his residency in general surgery at Emory University Hospitals in Atlanta and continued his training in plastic surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio.
With his medical specialty training completed, Dr. Castor returned to Lakeland, his wife’s hometown, as a board certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon.
His 12 years experience as a plastic surgeon gave Dr. Castor the confidence to open his new clinic in late 2007 at the beginning of the economic recession. He gave it a gilded name, Artisan Aesthetics, and his wife stepped in to help with office management and marketing.
“I like the fact that owning my own practice gives me more time with my patients,” said Dr. Castor. “I spend 45 minutes or more during appointments and have time to really get to know my patients,” he said.
The most common procedures Dr. Castor performs are breast implants, liposuction and tummy tucks, which patients seek out primarily to improve their self-esteem.
“I really feel better about myself and my self-confidence has improved,” said a Land O’ Lakes patient who asked to remain anonymous because of the personal nature of her surgery. “I used to be anxious about going to the gym and was having trouble getting back in shape.”
The 38-year-old patient, a registered nurse, came to Dr. Castor wanting breast implants after she stopped nursing her third child. “I had thought about it for years and years and was finally ready,” she said.
She researched and met with and several surgeons before selecting Dr. Castor. “I’m a nurse and I was impressed as much by his bedside manner as I was by his experience,” she said.
“He asked me a of lot of questions and made me feel I was as important as his very first case. The time he took with me made me feel like I was a person, not just another patient,” she said.
Artisan Aesthetics
5383 Primrose Lake Circle
Tampa 33647
Stanley Castor, M.D.
(813) 971-2000
www.artisanplasticsurgerycenter.net
