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Paul Tanners, a dentist for 34 years, has actually invited a young plastic surgeon, Michelle Zweifler, to join his practice. She's offering Botox and collagen injections to patients along with their cleanings, and Izamar Everett, who worked for over 25 years in a salon and spa, has come onboard to provide massage.
Tanners is a jolly man who wears a button bearing the photo of his 13-year-old son, as if the boy were running for office. "I would call this a mini-spa," he says joyfully, sitting back in his chair, oblivious to the fact that flecked carpeting, bookshelves filled with dental texts, and sets of plaster choppers are not the stuff Bliss is made of.
Reconfiguring their offices as "spas" is increasingly common among doctors, and while it's hard to argue with the impulse to make clients more comfortable, some of the services they offer — from facials to endermologie — don't always have scientific backup. "If a service is done in a doctor's office," says Matarasso, "it should be medically sound. And I think a gym is not the proper environment for Botox. This is a medical treatment, not a haircut, and it comes with consequences."
But on a bench overlooking the pool at Equinox on 63rd Street, casually dressed men and women seem to enjoy the setting. They're waiting to enter one of the treatment rooms that have been converted into offices for plastic surgeon Stephen Bosniak and ophthalmic surgeon Marian Cantisano-Zilkha, who also have offices on East 64th Street. "At first, we thought this would be mostly for the club members," says Bosniak. "But it turns out that our regular patients prefer coming here because the music and candlelight relax them. Now, except for surgery, we're seeing most of our patients at this location."
At Lana Rozenberg's 54th Street dental office, candles are burning, softening the fluorescent lights, and the New Age track "Songbirds at Sunrise" plays in the background. Medicinal odors are masked by the scents of clove- and cardamom-filled herbal wraps, placed around the necks of patients to lull them into relaxation. Like so many dentists' practices, Rozenberg's has become increasingly cosmetic; Henri Bendel is even selling her skin cream for the neck and jaw area, and she's working on a lip balm and a candle. In the back room, her aesthetician Polina does double duty, performing the Lift 6 facial with a mechanical gizmo designed to tone muscles and give the face a more youthful appearance. Rozenberg doesn't seem bothered by the fact that her hard-earned dental degree now shares wall space with a diploma from Lift 6's two-day training program.
"This isn't a regular dentist's office — it's an extension into the next level," says Rozenberg, an unlikely spa front woman with earth-colored hair wisping at the temples and no makeup to enliven her urban pallor. "We want to offer something more fun than having your teeth poked. I was apprehensive at first; I thought people might find it strange. That's why we included only neck and face treatments. But people really like it — men in particular. They don't say they're going to a spa; they say they're going to the dentist."
"Everyone is vying for the same elective dollar," points out Levine. And the race is just starting to heat up. As for his colleagues opening spas, Imber says, "In some ways, it demeans our primary mission, and in other ways, I suppose it's a good fit. But I would no sooner be in the spa and beauty business than in construction. Everyone is trying to get there first, and there will be a glut of these services soon," he continues. "There's just so much business. A certain number of people will succeed at it, and others won't. Then maybe doctors will get back to the business of being doctors."
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| Photo by Patrik Andersson. |
| From
the May 27, 2002 issue of New York Magazine.
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