Cory Wilbanks is not interested in simply opening another aesthetics practice in Memphis.
He is interested in changing the conversation about what an aesthetics practice can be.
“I am a nurse first, and that still shapes almost everything about how I practice,” says Wilbanks, DNP, APRN, FNP, AG-ACNP, owner and provider of Pose Aesthetics & Functional Wellness.
That perspective is central to Pose, a practice that brings Medical Aesthetics, Functional Wellness, and Primary Care together under one roof.
For Wilbanks, the combination makes sense because people do not experience their health in separate categories.
“People do not live in separate little boxes,” he says.
Medications can affect weight and skin. Hormones can affect energy, body composition, sexual health, and hair. Sleep and metabolic health can affect how someone feels. Medical conditions can influence which aesthetic treatments are appropriate.
Rather than asking patients to navigate all of those areas separately, Pose was created to connect them.
“I do not start with the syringe. I start with the person.”
A Career That Led Here
Wilbanks grew up in Walnut, Mississippi, and eventually came to Memphis, where he earned his nursing degrees at UTHSC. His career has included bedside nursing, hospital medicine, primary care, nursing education, executive clinical leadership, functional wellness, and medical aesthetics.
Aesthetics, he says, was never a departure from medicine.
“Medical aesthetics has been an ongoing clinical interest of mine for years. I love the anatomy, precision, technical skill, and artistic judgment involved.”
That distinction matters because Wilbanks wants patients to understand that aesthetic procedures are medical treatments.
“Clients do not understand that injectables ARE medications. They ARE being prescribed.”
His approach emphasizes anatomy, safety, clinical judgment, and individualized treatment.
“The needle is the easy part. The judgment is the treatment.”
Finding His Own Pose
The name of the practice comes from a deeply personal place.
Wilbanks says there have been periods in his life when he looked composed and capable on the outside while privately struggling.
“Sometimes looking fine is not confidence; it is survival.”
For him, Pose represents something different from performance.
“POSE is not performance and it is not pretending.”
Instead, it is about being cared for honestly and finding your way back to yourself.
That philosophy extends naturally into the work he does with clients.
“Your first appointment is allowed to be only a conversation.”
Patients do not have to arrive knowing what procedure they want. They can arrive with a concern, a goal, or simply a question.
“A good first consultation might end with a treatment. It might end with a staged plan, skincare, a different service, a referral, or absolutely nothing that day.”
A Different Perspective
As a male injector, Wilbanks is entering an industry historically associated with women. But he does not believe being a man should be the defining feature of his practice.
“Skill, judgment, taste, safety, and trust are not gendered.”
He also rejects the idea that there is one universal approach to treating men.
“Some men want sharper structure. Some want softer features. Some want to look extremely natural. Some want an obvious change.”
The patient’s anatomy, identity, preferences, goals, and safety should determine the plan.
He also believes men are becoming more comfortable caring about appearance and wellness.
“Men are finally realizing that caring about how you look does not cancel out masculinity.”
For Wilbanks, that is part of a much larger shift toward men discussing weight, hormones, sexual health, hair loss, sleep, metabolic health, mental health, and preventive care.
A Place Where Everyone is Seen
Inclusivity is another important part of the Pose story, particularly for Memphis’ LGBTQ+ community.
“Inclusion, to me at least, is not simply a rainbow logo in June. It is how your practice behaves on an ordinary Tuesday.”
For Wilbanks, inclusion is reflected in the intake form, the language providers use, privacy, pronouns, and whether patients can discuss their bodies without worrying about judgment.
“Sometimes the first question is not, ‘What treatment do I want?’ It is, ‘Can I actually be honest with you?’”
He wants LGBTQ+ patients to know that they do not have to prove themselves worthy of respectful care.
“You will not have to audition for respect at POSE.”
That philosophy also extends to transgender and gender-expansive patients.
“A procedure may support someone’s expression or help their appearance feel more congruent with who they are, but the procedure is never what makes their identity legitimate.”
The goal is not to impose an idea of what someone should look like.
“Only YOU choose how YOU will POSE.”
Rooted in Memphis
Pose’s location in High Point Terrace was deliberate.
Wilbanks and his husband, Ben, live nearby, and he wanted the practice to become part of the neighborhood rather than simply occupy a commercial address.
“I did not want POSE to feel like an interchangeable clinic dropped into a retail development that could be in any zip code or city.”
He believes Memphis itself brings something valuable to the practice.
“Memphis has style, humor, loyalty, history, and a very low tolerance for pretension. And I am living for it.”
For Wilbanks, authenticity matters.
People want expertise, but they also want relationships.
“They want to know who is caring for them.”
That idea may ultimately define the Pose experience.
Not a transaction.
Not a quota.
Not a one-size-fits-all treatment.
“We pay attention. We remember the plan. We follow through.”
Writing the Next Chapter
Wilbanks has big plans for Pose, but he wants growth to happen deliberately.
“I absolutely want it to grow. I am competitive, and I have high expectations for what we can build.”
Still, success is not simply measured in revenue or appointments.
“Success is when people trust POSE with the whole story, not just one transaction.”
Perhaps that is where the HERstory of Pose becomes most interesting.
Cory Wilbanks may be a man entering a field largely shaped by women, but his story is ultimately bigger than gender. He is building a practice that asks people to consider healthcare, wellness, aesthetics, identity, and confidence as parts of the same person.
And at the center of it all is a simple idea:
“I want every person who leaves POSE to feel seen, thoroughly cared for, and more like themselves as they envision themselves, not like a version of someone else.”
That is the Pose story.
And it is only the beginning.
