Park Avenue to Worth Avenue: New York-based plastic surgeon opens Palm Beach office

Opening a new office in Palm Beach was a sort of homecoming for Dr. Norman Rowe.

Though the board-certified plastic surgeon and New York University graduate is not from the area, his wife, Mia, is. Her grandfather and father, both plastic surgeons, are, too.

The late Samuel Scher and his son, Charles Scher, ran busy plastic surgery practices on the island, Rowe said.

Related: 'No appointment, no wait': New medical concierge service set for March debut in Palm Beach

Charles Scher, who has since retired and moved to Wellington, encouraged New York-based Rowe to open an office on the island. He also operates six Rowe Plastic Surgery locations in New York and New Jersey.

"For my wife, it was natural for a family member — her husband, her dad — to practice in Palm Beach," said Rowe, who opened a temporary location at 165 Brazilian Ave. in October. A permanent office at 175 Bradley Place is slated to open this summer. "It was just like normal for her.

"Her father said we had to come down from New York. We were looking to come down here and spend some more time with him. He's getting up in years. We came down here, we found this place here and opened up. It's been going gangbusters."

Rowe, 58, a Louisville, Kentucky, native who received his plastic surgery training at New York University Medical Center and the Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Institute, opened his first plastic surgery office on New York's Upper East Side in 2003.

Five other locations followed, including a second office on the Upper East Side as well as offices in Plainville and Water Mill in New York, and Montclair and Red Bank in New Jersey.

He decided to open a Palm Beach location to be closer to family but also to serve established patients who have homes in Florida and the Northeast.

"Palm Beach, to a certain extent, follows the same business model as all of our other offices," Rowe said. "I sit down every year or so and look to see where a lot of our patients are coming to us from, where a lot of my patients are coming to me from. If I have 12 a month coming from Bergen County, N.J., then if I open up there, I'll get 50 patients a month coming into an office there. I found a lot of our patients during the summer off-season were back in New York, and they were coming to our Hamptons office or our New York City office. And I said if I open up in Palm Beach, I should — knock on wood — do well. And we have. A lot of our patients appreciate it."

In all of his locations, Rowe offers a variety of services including breast, rhinoplasty and revisions procedures, anti-aging treatments, skin and body rejuvenation, and lymphedema treatments.

Rowe, a father of three, said he is committed to his patients' health, well-being, and happiness, even if that means differing with them on what types of treatment he'd recommend.

"We give you our honest opinion," he said. "I think a lot of times, a lot of doctors may not. They'll do what's best for themselves, not the patient. You've got to put the patient first."

Rowe hasn't veered from that objective in Palm Beach.

He noted that while some South Florida physicians overdo plastic surgery procedures, he prefers to promote more natural-looking rejuvenation.

"There are definitely geographic styles to plastic surgery," he said. "What's acceptable in some geography is not in others. New Yorkers, at least in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut — up there in our offices — they want to look great. They want to look rested, but they don't want to look overdone where people would say that they looked like they just came back from the plastic surgeon's office. We brought that down to Palm Beach."

Rowe said he will remain based in New York City, but he plans to travel to Palm Beach regularly to see patients and build his practice.

"I know it's going to work out," he said. "In the three or four months since we've opened, we already have established ourselves. And then come mid-summer, we'll be in our new space. It'll be beautiful. We're going to bring Park Avenue to Worth Avenue."

Jodie Wagner is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at jwagner@pbdailynews.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: New York City-based plastic surgeon opens new office in Palm Beach