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Patti, Marshall and Alannah Yellen

After nine years of medical training, Plastic Surgeon Marshall Yellen, MD, was looking for a practice to join. His search led him to Jackson, Tenn., and the office of Jimmy Kee.

What he thought would be a two-year stint in the town of Jackson soon became what Yellen describes as a runaway train that he just could not get off. Fourteen years later, even though the train has slowed a bit, Yellen is still on it.

The Plastic Surgery Center had been in business 18 years before Yellen walked into the practice as the first partner of Jimmy Kee, MD. Kee had colon cancer that was in remission and knew he needed a partner to help with the practice. “When I met Jimmy, he was such an easy going nice guy. The fit seemed right even though we were worlds apart from each other. I was a Jewish kid from New York and Jimmy was an Arkansas Church of Christ boy,” said Yellen. “I figured Jackson was going to be a nice starting point for my career and thought I would hang around for two years or so before heading back up north.”

Yellen could not have been more wrong about leaving as the runaway train was about to take off. In 1999, at the end of Yellen’s first two years in Jackson, Kee’s colon cancer was back, and Yellen and his wife, Patti, welcomed their daughter, Alannah, into the world. Two years later, Patti was diagnosed with breast cancer one day, and Kee’s wife, Lisa, was diagnosed the next. In 2004, Kee was still battling cancer and made the decision to retire from the practice. He died in 2006. “Jimmy was a great partner and we went through quite a lot together,” said Yellen. “He was a wonderful mentor to me; he protected me and did his best to acclimate this Yankee boy to the ways of the South.”

Yellen was born in Queens, a borough of New York City, and moved to Long Island at the age of eight. His father was a pharmaceutical sales representative with ER Squibb, which later merged with Bristol-Meyers. Having a father immersed in the medical field only furthered Yellen’s commitment to pursue medicine as a career. “All my life, I knew I would go into medicine,” said Yellen. “I never considered anything else.”

In pursuit of his medical dream, Yellen entered Brandeis University, a private research university with a liberal arts focus in Waltham, Mass., nine miles west of Boston. As an undergraduate pursuing a double major in biology and bio-chemistry, Yellen was named one of the top ten pre-medical students at Brandeis during his sophomore year. Yellen graduated with honors in 1984 and headed home to New York for medical school.

In his third year of medical school at New York University School of Medicine, Yellen worked with craniofacial and cleft palette clinics and participated on a project dealing with liposuction. These experiences sealed the deal for the medical student who always knew he wanted to do some type of surgery, and he chose to pursue plastics. He graduated with his medical degree in 1988.

Yellen completed a full five-year residency in general surgery at Lennox Hill Hospital, a major teaching affiliate of New York University Medical Center. He remained in New York to complete a three-year residency in plastic surgery at St Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital, a teaching hospital affiliated with Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He finished the residency in 1996.

Next for Yellen was a one-year prestigious fellowship in hand surgery at the Christine M. Kleinert Institute for Hand and Micro Surgery in Louisville, Kentucky, a cooperative effort of the Institute and the University of Louisville School of Medicine. Fellows are fully trained plastic, orthopedic or general surgeons who come to Louisville from all over the world for additional training in hand and microsurgery. The fellowship training involved all aspects of hand surgery, reconstruction and replantation.

“It was the best year of all my nine years of training,” said Yellen. “I met people from the United States and all over the world. I am still good friends with one of the fellows I met from England.”

Today, Yellen is still practicing alone, but he would like to add a partner at some point. “I miss having a partner to discuss a case with and learn new things from,” said Yellen, who is board certified in both general surgery and plastic surgery. He is a member of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. (Membership in the Society is a unique distinction reserved for aesthetic surgeons who distinguish themselves in advanced education and clinical focus in aesthetic plastic surgery. He recommends patients seek certified specialists when seeking treatment.)

Yellen says he has seen a much bigger acceptance of plastic surgery in the South than when he first arrived here. “People are more private about plastic surgery in the South than in New York, where they throw a party the day of their surgery. Our practice includes a full range of cosmetic surgical procedures, skin care treatments, and hand surgery.

We can offer patients non-surgical treatments, such as Botox and fillers that can eliminate or delay the need for surgical options such as lifts. For those that do have surgery, our skin care products and treatments can prolong the results.”

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