Dr. David Greuner is a founding member and managing partner of NYC Surgical Associates, a multi-specialty practice with seven locations in the tri-state area, each with its own on-site surgical facilities. Since it’s founding in 2008, NYC Surgical Associates has become one of the fastest growing practices in New York. It’s also one of the safest.
Beginning NYC Surgical Associates was a deliberate response to Dr. Greuner’s disappointment with the status quo and bureaucracy of hospital medicine. He wanted a different paradigm. Patients with botched surgeries, painful scars, lipedema, lymphedema, hernias, soft tissue disorders, and serious vascular issues often require more than one medical specialty to treat their complex cases; NYC Surgical Associates brings together highly skilled physicians who work as a team for their patients.
Expediting recovery after surgery and minimizing downtime are important goals for modern surgical therapy. The mission of NYC Surgical Associates is to deliver the highest standards of surgical care in every specialty, using only the most advanced, minimally invasive approaches to medical procedures. To achieve this mission of surgical excellence, Dr. Greuner has carefully curated his team of specialist surgeons at NYC Surgical Associates, and their glowing reviews attest to the thousands of satisfied patients they have treated.
Dr. Greuner’s keen eye for surgical talent has been shaped by his own experiences. His achievements and accolades are remarkable for a surgeon of any age, let alone for a 40-year-old. For seven years in a row, he has been voted a “Top Surgeon” by the Consumers’ Research Council. He was named chief resident of the year during his training at the Mount Sinai-affiliated hospital in Morristown, New Jersey. He trained there after completing post-graduate work in general surgery at the University of Arizona-affiliated hospitals in Phoenix, Arizona. He was then awarded a two-year fellowship in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a one-year fellowship in body contouring and complex reconstruction in the massive weight-loss patient, with the world-renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Victor Rosenberg.
Among Dr. Greuner’s areas of particular expertise lies addressing the problems that plague patients after weight loss. As our society becomes more health conscious, the number of patients losing weight and keeping it off is increasing annually. When we gain weight, our body tissues stretch — our skin, our organs, and our blood vessels, especially veins — in various directions. After weight loss, tissue recoils only to a certain extent. In most cases, a significant amount of laxity remains. Floppy, saggy skin; hernias; and bulging veins are problems that typically remain after weight loss, and are a humiliating and persistent reminder that often impedes future progress. These problems can also pose serious health risks.
NYC Surgical Associates specializes in novel, efficient, and effective solutions to each of these issues. Dr. Greuner is the inventor of No Knife EVLT, a minimally invasive procedure that solves vein problems without even the smallest of incisions. In this procedure, a slight laser catheter is threaded through a needle so thin it leaves no scar when it seals veins that are too large and not returning blood to the heart, as they should. When veins don’t return blood optimally, the blood pools in the legs, causing cramping, swelling, and sometimes varicose veins. No Knife EVLT alleviates the problem and is quick, painless, and successful.
The team at NYC Surgical Associates also specializes in reconstructing and re-contouring skin and other tissue after persons lose significant weight, as well as repairing hernias that often co-exist in these patients. The more active a person is, the more likely a hernia can develop as a result of a muscular defect. Dr. Greuner believes all hernias should be repaired because they may cause serious internal problems if left untreated, especially in patients who are physically active.
Dr. Greuner also pioneered the Slim-Line Hernia Repair, a novel procedure which corrects even the most complex hernia without using a traditional prosthetic mesh. This procedure includes a cosmetic tummy tuck for an optimal cosmetic result, as well as a functional one. In addition, by avoiding mesh, the Slim-Line approach eliminates risks associated with prosthetic materials, such as chronic pain and infection.
Similarly, a large part of NYC Surgical Associates’ work involves minimizing risk and improving outcomes for patients. The practice has almost completely eliminated dangerous blood clots in its surgical patients. NYC Surgical Associates has accomplished this by adopting an algorithm developed by Dr. Greuner that uses interventional radiological techniques with a complex knowledge of vascular physiology. While developing these techniques, Dr. Greuner transformed NYC Surgical Associates into one of the few centers in the world that do a large volume of procedures for patients with problems in their central venous system. As a result of these advancements, NYC Surgical Associates has become a world leader in modern, minimally invasive procedures and interventional techniques.
Perhaps what Dr. Greuner prides himself on most is treating soft tissue disorders that have been somewhat overlooked by the medical establishment. He specializes in treating lipedema, a particularly common soft tissue disorder that is often misdiagnosed. Lipedema affects eleven percent of women and is characterized by large, columnar-appearing ankles, or “cankles,” even in those who are otherwise quite slim. It’s a genetic disorder and no amount of exercise or dieting will help. Dr. Greuner is one of only a few surgeons worldwide who is expertly trained to perform a specialized liposuction procedure that enormously improves lipedema. This procedure also helps patients who suffer from lymphedema: painful tissue swelling, a common complication after cancerous lymph nodes have been removed.
Although it seems Dr. Greuner’s professional trajectory was a straight shot, it wasn’t. Along his journey, a car accident kept him from working, and his life as he knew it seemed to evaporate. But Dr. Greuner embraced life’s risks and persevered: he began all over again, and succeeded all over again. Today he is considered at the top of his field, with a long list of TV appearances and press profiles. Visit nycsurgical.net/media-center to view appearances on Dr. Oz and The Doctors.
Dr. Greuner’s life experiences — exhilarating and despairing — drive his charitable giving, which is extensive. He is a co-sponsor of Safe Horizon’s yearly clothing drive, and is a patron of Support for Breast and Ovarian Cancer|Share Foundation. As a lifelong athlete, Dr. Greuner competes in triathlons and other events for charity, and does his best to help all patients achieve their best functional status while taking into consideration their appearance at the same time. This, he believes is the future of modern surgery. As he says, “It’s not only about saving lives any more. It’s about saving the quality of your life as well. Everyone deserves to have a certain quality of life, and I make it my life’s goal to help give it to them.”
