An Interview with Dr. Mark Young: Endodontist, Entrepreneur & Private Equity Partner with Thurston Group

What happens when a healthcare professional moves from practicing medicine to helping build and scale healthcare businesses?

In this episode of The White Coat Entrepreneur, I sit down with Dr. Mark Young, a practicing endodontist turned entrepreneur and Operating Partner with Thurston Group, to discuss his journey from clinical practice to private equity and the lessons he has learned along the way.

Dr. Young shares how his entrepreneurial mindset began at a young age, including the lessons he learned from having a paper route as a child, and how those early experiences shaped his understanding of hard work, money, and building something of his own.

After completing dental school at the University of the Pacific and his endodontic training at Harvard, Dr. Young returned to California and began building his own practice. What started as a single practice eventually grew through acquisitions, partnerships, and a focus on creating opportunities for other endodontists.

That experience ultimately led him to Thurston Group and U.S. Endodontics, where he found an opportunity to combine his clinical expertise with his passion for entrepreneurship, business development, and scaling healthcare organizations. We also have a candid conversation about private equity in healthcare, a topic that can generate plenty of skepticism among physicians and other healthcare professionals. Dr. Young explains what attracted him to Thurston Group, what he believes separates a true partnership from a purely financial transaction, and why culture, clinical excellence, and patient care have to remain at the center of the model.

We discuss what happens during an equity event, why a successful private equity partnership isn't simply about "selling out," and how subsequent investment partners can help continue building an organization rather than dismantling what made it successful in the first place. Dr. Young and I also explore the importance of scaling early, the opportunity cost of waiting, and why healthcare entrepreneurs need to think beyond simply increasing their own practice's EBITDA. We talk about the advantages of shared resources, technology, systems, collaboration, and learning from other high-performing practices. Finally, we look toward the future of healthcare and aesthetics. As the aesthetics industry continues to grow and mature, Dr. Young shares his perspective on consolidation, industry standards, private equity, and where organizations like Alpha Aesthetics Partners could fit into the future of the industry.

At the heart of this conversation is a question that applies to healthcare entrepreneurs across specialties:

How do you build something bigger than yourself while maintaining the clinical standards, culture, and patient-first philosophy that made it successful in the first place?

For Dr. Young, the answer comes down to partnership, continuous learning, and surrounding yourself with people who are experts in areas where you may not be.

Listen on Captivate

Learn more about Dr. Mark Young and his work with Thurston Group

Dr. Mark Young’s Biography

Learn more about Alpha Aesthetics Partners

Alpha Aesthetics Partners