Tokyo Cosmetic Surgery Director Yasushi Aso

The happy faces of our customers are a great motivation for our work

Director of Tokyo Cosmetic Surgery　I'm sorry(Toru Asou)

■ Profile

Graduated from Keio University School of Medicine. Doctor of Medicine. Opened Tokyo Cosmetic Surgery in May 2004. He is the general director of the group's 14 clinics. He currently operates over 100 clinics across Japan, including AGA Skin Clinic. His major works include "The Law of Change," "The Real Thoughts of a Cosmetic Surgeon," and "The Story of Yasushi Aso." His motto is "You can't change the past, but you can change the future."

Director Aso is happy to see the happy faces of his customers and is committed to continuing to provide the best possible cosmetic medical care. He now oversees a staff of 900 people, but he failed the entrance exam to medical school three times and was full of anxiety about the medical industry. We spoke to this hard-working director about what led him to pursue cosmetic medical care and his thoughts on the industry.

I decided to apply to medical school when I was in my second year of high school. The main reasons for this were that my mother was blind in one eye and I wanted to fulfill her wish that one of my four siblings become a doctor, and also because I had seen my father as a businessman and had come to realise the importance of money. Initially, I wanted to go into plastic surgery within the medical field. This was because I was an avid reader of Black Jack as a child and was amazed at how facial fractures could be repaired when I saw them treated as a student.

However, despite taking the entrance exams for medical school, I failed to get into any of them. Thinking that if I studied for another year I would get in, I took a year off to study, but I failed the second year as well, and finally passed in my third year. As for my friends, they were already talking about finding work, and I still remember how frustrated I was. There were no people around me who had become doctors, and I was filled with anxiety about the medical industry. Even if I passed the national exam, I wondered if I would really be able to become a doctor.

◾️Effort is always rewarded

To overcome these feelings of anxiety, I worked as a treatment assistant from morning until night while I was in school, and even after graduating from medical school, I gained a lot of knowledge and experience through training and other programs. I was blessed with great colleagues, both seniors and juniors, as well as nurses, and I lived a fulfilling life, even though it was difficult. But one day, something happened that changed my situation completely. My father's company went bankrupt. I needed money to support our family, and I was forced to switch from plastic surgery to becoming a more lucrative cosmetic surgeon.

To gain knowledge of cosmetic surgery, I traveled not only to Japan but also to Beverly Hills, Korea, and Australia, where I learned many techniques. At one point, I blamed myself for entering the beauty industry just for the money, but my feelings gradually changed as I saw the happy faces of my customers after treatment. A major factor in this is that cosmetic surgery requires not only medical knowledge and technical skills, but also aesthetic sense. This was a field that suited me. From now on, with the sole desire to "make this person beautiful," I would like to continue providing better techniques to provide the beauty that my customers desire and see them smile after treatment.

◾️I want to see the happy faces of our customers

In order to satisfy my clients, I focus on two main areas. The first is to constantly strive to improve my skills. In addition to realizing the beauty each client desires, I want to provide even more satisfying services to my clients by reducing pain and the number of treatments required. To achieve this, we must further hone the high level of expertise that is Tokyo Cosmetic Surgery's greatest strength. This is evident in the fact that we only employ medical staff who are certified in plastic surgery, a certification that takes seven years to acquire.

I also want to create a system that allows for centralized management of medical records not only in the cosmetic medical industry, but across the entire medical industry. In this way, I want to provide medical services that put the customer first, and as a means to achieve this, I am working hard to increase my communication power using YouTube. Rather than being afraid of what will happen if I become famous, I believe that if I start communicating first, something might change.

The second is management, as I am the director of the clinic. Here too, I have to shoulder a great deal of responsibility. The livelihoods of the approximately 2 staff members who follow me and their families depend on it. In order to satisfy our customers, we must create a work environment where staff can work comfortably. Human relationships are very important in the workplace. Our clinic aims to be a workplace where good human relationships can be built.

For example, to eliminate bullying and discrimination, I have created a system that allows for immediate detection and reporting in the unlikely event that such an incident does occur, and I am conscious of continuing to be on-site myself. I also try to hire people who are excellent not only technically but also as people. To that end, I always check the social media accounts of job applicants. In fact, some people have been rejected because of their social media accounts. University students, please be careful (laughs).

At the same time, we actively hire people who have letters of recommendation. Having someone with a recommendation is a major factor in our decision-making process. We also prefer people who love cosmetic surgery. We want to work with people who are proactive and take action on their own, rather than being passive.

◾️Message

When I was a student, I was always filled with anxiety. Even now, I still dream about taking the university entrance exams. I was that obsessed, but those feelings of anxiety and impatience will definitely be useful in the future. I believe that the efforts I made to dispel the great anxiety I felt at that time have led me to who I am today. If you are currently filled with anxiety and impatience, I would like to say, don't push yourself too hard, and you will become good at it as you keep going.

Student Newspaper Special Edition, July 1, 2022, Nihon University First-Year Student, Omori Amane