NYC plastic surgeon operated on his entire family — and gave sister a boob job


He cuts close to home.

Dr. Anthony Berlet has turned his plastic surgery practice into a family affair, operating on his mother, wife, twin brother, stepdaughter and niece — and even gave his sister a boob job.

Berlet, 66, who has offices on the Upper East Side and in Southampton and his hometown of Cedar Grove, New Jersey, said he worked on more than half a dozen relatives over the last two decades.

Plastic surgeon Dr. Anthony Berlet has been trusted by his entire family to perform their cosmetic surgeries. J.C. Rice for NY Post

The first relative Berlet worked on was a 2008 facelift for his mother, who died seven years ago, he said. He also shortened her earlobes.

“My mom always used to tell me I was going to grow up to be a plastic surgeon. I’m sure she had designs on me giving her a facelift,” he said.

Nothing was more “awkward” than when he performed a breast augmentation on his sister Pam, who works as his office manager.

“It was just the strangest thing ever,” Berlet recalled.

Pam was inspired to ask her brother to operate after seeing the results of his work on so many of his patients, many of them repeat customers, she said.

She didn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable, she insisted.

“It’s more like an art project … because he sees beauty in everything and if he sees a way to improve something, then he’s all for it,” Pam explained.

Operating on relatives is “a little edgier” than on strangers, but it felt natural, said Berlet, who graduated from Rutgers Medical School.

He even gave his wife Kerry a facelift. Courtesy of Dr. Anthony Berlet

The doctor said he’s always taken an interest in his siblings’ appearances and would even style them when they were kids.

“I would cut their hair growing up,” he said.

The doctor declined to reveal if he charged his family members for the procedures.

The one loved one he was most afraid to work on was Kerry, his wife of eight years.

“My wife is very vain about her appearance … She’s attractive, and she wanted to keep that,” he said.

Berlet performed the surgery on his wife without anesthesia, and she was awake for the entire procedure, numbed with Valium, she said.

Kerry insisted her husband do the surgery, he said.

He even did some eye work on his brother, Matthew Berlet, who said the procedure improved his self-esteem. Courtesy of Dr. Anthony Berlet

“She gave me no decision. It was like, ‘All right, you’re doing my face, you know, it’s time.’ She put herself on the schedule,” he said.

The statistics teacher at Columbia’s Teachers College got a deep clean facelift from her hubby, along with a lateral brow lift and lip lift earlier this year.

She wasn’t afraid at all of having a close family member operate on her.

“It’s full trust, I had no fear,” she said, “I’ve had so many friends that have, like, done surgery with my husband and, like, models, and actors, very attractive people, like, I was not worried.”

He even reset his then-12-year-old stepdaughter’s nose after she broke it in an errant bounce on the family’s trampoline.

Dr. Anthony Berlet said his wife Kerry insisted he work on her. Courtesy of Dr. Anthony Berlet

“I was so mad, she’s gorgeous, you know, and her nose was crooked. And I’m like, thank God. I’m married to a plastic surgeon,” Kerry said.

Berlet’s twin brother Matt, who is a brain surgeon, had his brother remove wrinkles from his eyes and said he loved the results.

“The eyes are a real focal point. If you can get that fixed, it can really change your overall appearance and when you look in the mirror, you feel a lot better about yourself, it makes the day start off easier,” he said.

Berlet operated on his brother’s daughter a decade ago, when she was 20, to remove an old surgery scar and perform liposuction. Berlet even gave his brother’s girlfriend Botox and performed a procedure to stop her sweating from her armpits, he said.

“My brother is extremely generous, and he’s established trust, I mean, you trust blood right?” he said.

The American Medical Association has long cautioned doctors against treating family members,

“In general, it’s bad to work on family members,” New York University Medical Ethics Professor Arthur Caplan told The Post.

“Your objectivity gets compromised. It’s hard for the emotions when you’re related to them to objectively treat them, it’s much better to not do that, to not get involved with your relatives and close friends.”

Berlet’s twin disagreed.

“I think plastic surgery is different. It’s a different kettle of fish compared to, you know, let’s say if I were fixing the brain aneurysm, I might have a hard time doing it in my brother,” he said.



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