Although I opened my first aesthetic practice 20 years ago, I can still remember the desire I had and the reasons why. I had worked in emergency medicine for several years and I truly reveled in the variety of people and medical problems as well as the unpredictable nature of the environment. I am not one to be stressed, even in life or death situations and my innately calm nature made me well suited for the job. However, there are some aspects of the emergency department (just like any job) that are tedious and annoying. For instance it can be challenging taking care of the same people over and over again who refuse to take care of themselves. Unfortunately dealing with “frequent flyer” patients for long hours in a high stress environment leads some staff members to become burnt out and, at times, less compassionate I get that, but I thought the ER staff should be able to rise above and be the bigger person. Working with cynical and burnt out staff who did not always conduct themselves with empathy sparked my desire to work in an environment of caring people. But as most ER’s go, I had no control over the hiring and firing of the staff. The goal of surrounding myself with compassionate people combined with the entrepreneurial spirit I “inherited” from my Dad led me on a search for my own business. After seeing what some colleagues were doing I decided to open LightCare Medical Spa.
At the time, Botox had not been approved for cosmetic use, so I began by doing Laser Hair Removal. I was naive about the effect that aesthetic treatments had on real people, but I knew the technology was effective. I focused on the idea of owning a business and being able to choose happy people with which to work. After performing hundreds of laser hair removal procedures I started to realize that I was changing my patients’ lives in a profoundly positive way. I was amazed at how people actually walked taller when their facial hair was gone, or could feel more comfortable in their own skin when I had removed the hair on their back. I will never forget a thank you note from one young man complete with a picture that said “This is a picture of me at the beach being, for lack of a better term, normal. I could not have done that before having laser hair removal.”
A few years later Botox and dermal fillers hit the market and a whole new era of aesthetic medicine opened up. I moved my practice a couple times until I finally landed as the medical director of a large Chicago (Lincoln Park) medical spa. There I was responsible for overseeing all medical treatments including laser treatments, microneedling, and injections. I was hiring and training nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants to do the injection procedures. During that time I had access to the best hands on training and lectures and was able to oversee thousands of procedures. However the bulk of my responsibility was in a supervisory role where I did injector training and oversight, patient consultations and dealt with the rare problems or undesired outcomes. That role became more removed from clinical hands-on patient care and involved managing way more people and personalities than I cared to do. So once again I looked for a new fit. I realized that I wanted to get back to more personal care where I could really use my expertise one-on-one. So I settled on a model where I could have minimal staff and minimal lasers and other machines and decided to focus my practice on facial injections. We live in such an amazing time when it comes to facial injections. I wanted to focus only on facial injections because I feel that is the least invasive procedures with the most impact to helping you look fabulous. The technology and techniques that are available now make it possible to provide amazing facial changes, most of which are very subtle, that will significantly change people’s lives. That practice is MGMD Aesthetics where I take a caring and personalized approach to facial rejuvenation using the latest technology to help people look and feel fabulous!