| By Dathan Kazsuk |
Raleigh’s newest plastic surgery practice isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about artistry, restoration, and a sense of family. At the helm is Dr. Heather Levites, who recently opened LevityLifts near the intersection of Creedmoor and Millbrook roads, with a vision to bring a new level of care and comfort to the Triangle.
Her story doesn’t start in the operating room, but under the spotlight. “My original intention and goal in life was to be a performer on Broadway, or I had dreams of being a Rockette when I was little,” Levites recalls. Growing up in New York, she attended the Professional Children’s School, surrounded by actors, dancers, and artists. After a stint off-Broadway, she realized the routine wasn’t for her. Instead, she turned her energy toward academics. “I loved math, I love science, but I still kind of have this right brain creative aspect,” she says.
That combination led her to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she studied management science and economics while also running the school’s largest student-run dance group. A short stint in finance convinced her she needed something that merged creativity with science.
“What can I do with myself that kind of merges both my interests in math and science, and still has a creative aspect to it?” she remembers asking. A friend suggested plastic surgery. “It just seems like something that you would be perfectly well suited to, because it has all of those things.”
That advice set her on a path from Columbia University’s postbaccalaureate program to Duke University, where she trained in surgery and first connected with the nurse who would later join her team at LevityLifts. Today, Levites specializes in procedures designed to highlight natural beauty rather than alter it. “I have such a love of restoring a patient’s natural beauty,” she explains. “I’m not the surgeon people come to if they want to look fake or overdone. And I think people kind of gravitate toward me because of that.”
Her preferred approach includes fat grafting, where fat is taken from one area of the body and moved to another. “Whether that be the face, the hands, the breast or the buttock … those are the most common areas to restore volume and enhance beauty without implants,” she says. Other specialties include facelifts, rhinoplasty, eyelid surgery, and brow lifts.
One of the distinctive aspects of LevityLifts is its all-female team. “I don’t think it was an intentional thing that, oh, no boys allowed,” she says with a laugh. “But I do think that there’s a sense of comfort for the patient that comes with having all female providers.” Some patients, she noted, come from religious backgrounds or simply feel more secure around women. Her team includes two nurses, an OR coordinator, and a front desk manager— each wearing “all the hats” and contributing to the close-knit atmosphere.
Now that LevityLifts has officially opened its doors, Levites is already looking ahead. “My goal is to expand LevityLifts as much as I possibly can,” she says. That could mean more space in the current building or even additional Triangle locations. Within 5 years, she envisions adding med spa offerings and women’s health services such as hormone replacement therapy. “The sky’s the limit. I think just hiring more people and providing a more holistic experience for my patients is kind of the goal in the next couple of years.”
