The offer was impossible to ignore: a lucrative buyout from a private equity firm, a clear exit strategy, and the promise of a lighter workload. For Drs. Benjamin Maser and Steven Bates, two acclaimed plastic surgeons at Reveal Plastic Surgery in Silicon Valley, it was the kind of deal that could have set them up for life. But they said no.

They believed in a different path, one that traded short-term profit for long-term autonomy and exceptional patient care. Their story is a powerful counter-narrative in an era when private equity firms are rapidly acquiring physician practices, turning independent clinics into corporate assets. Today, just 2 in 5 U.S. physicians remain in a doctor-owned private practice. Maser and Bates chose to be two of them.

Leaving corporate medicine behind

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