Dr. Martin Kessler is a founding partner of one of Long Island’s largest and most successful cosmetic surgery practices, anchoring The Plastic Surgery Group PC’s South Shore office in Rockville Centre. Now in his early 50s, Kessler – attentive, cheerful and a skilled surgeon – is perhaps the leading and most experienced cosmetic surgeon in the southern part of Long Island today.

Colleagues say he’s a physician of great personal warmth who takes a strong and ongoing interest in his patients and their well being. Moreover, to a greater degree than his colleagues, Drs. Gregory DeVita and Mark I. Silberman (theirs is the only firm with three physicians in The Ten Leaders of Plastic Surgery of Long Island), Dr. Kessler maintains strong relationships with New York’s academic medical community; for years he has served as an associate clinical professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in Manhattan, where he received his medical degree in 1981.

While his practice covers the spectrum of cosmetic surgery techniques and procedures -- reconstructive breast surgery, facial rejuvenation, body contouring – he is also nationally known as a leading specialist of hand surgeries. It is a field in which he has special certification, and which he has written on expansively.

Dr. Kessler grew up on Long Island's South Shore, not far from his office today. His father was a businessman, diamond cutter and cantor at his Temple, who “took a very exacting approach to everything he did,” Dr. Kessler says. “I certainly have my father’s personality.” Growing up he considered becoming an architect; as a 10-year-old he carved soap bars into little houses. As an undergraduate he majored in biology (“I always loved science”), graduating at the top of his class, and went straight on to Cornell medical school. He chose plastic surgery largely because of his own deeply held aesthetic sense, and during his plastic surgery residency “I saw the great impact I was having on people’s lives.” His expertise in hand surgery evolved from the Kentucky farm injuries he addressed during a one-year fellowship in hand and microsurgery at the Cleveland Clinic and University of Louisville Health Sciences Center.

Returning to take his medical boards, Dr. Kessler met future partners Silberman and DeVita; in their mid 30s, they teamed up. Now, nearly two decades into building a respected practice (“It’s unusual to have this level of steady growth and stability in any field nowadays”), The Plastic Surgery Group is a five-surgeon team, with state-of-the-art facilities in Great Neck and Rockville Centre. Today Dr. Kessler performs most of his cosmetic procedures at the Group’s North Shore office, but he remains Chief of Plastic Surgery at South Nassau Community Hospital, and performs many of his reconstructive surgeries at this South Shore institution.. Widely respected, Dr. Kessler remains approachable and down-to-earth.

Away from his practice, Dr. Kessler recently completed a 300-mile bicycle trek through Israel; cycling remains a passion for him. Dr. Kessler and his wife have three grown children; a daughter, Alana, owns a holistic nutrition and yoga practice in Manhattan and Brooklyn; son Joshua, 25, is married and own his own insurance brokerage; 21-year-old son Evan attends the University of Maryland. Dr. Kessler’s brother Leonard is a respected oncologist, his practice is located a short distance away.

Copyright © 2002 - 2010 The Ten Leaders Cooperative