Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: During COVID I saw a lot of pathology in my patients of where the stress of COVID so the actual environment. There were a lot of other issues, political, economic pressures that Covid created as vibrations. And my patients were really stressed out and anxious. I was very stressed out anxious. And that would present as amplification on their skin as either acne breakouts, eczema got worse, psoriasis got worse. So the skin deteriorated in quality because of significant stress that emotion, emotional and psychological stress that patients experience.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Welcome to Skinview. I'm Dr. Anna Chacon and today we have a very special guest joining us.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Get ready for some expert insights you won't want to miss.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Do you want to tell us a.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Little bit about yourself? First of all, I want to thank you again and how honored I am to be part of this conversation. And how are you today, Anna?
[00:00:55] Speaker B: I'm great, thank you. Sorry for running behind.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: It's okay. It's wonderful to have these open conversations and getting to know each other more because our community, we all work so hard and committed to skincare and different ways, especially used to so many communities through teledermatology. And you have licensers throughout the US So I really admire you and thank you for taking the time and turning the conversation toward me. My background, Yes, I am originally from former Soviet Union, Estonia, and I was born there in 1970s. I hope I don't age myself too much talking about that aspect. And I grew up with a very caring and sheltering family that has strong family values. And even though when I was growing up in former Soviet Union, I still got to experience the tough aspect of being raised in a communist society.
I think my parents did their best to shelter and provide a happy childhood for myself and my brother. I had an older brother and we grew up mostly studying, but then playing outdoors. My brother was into hockey and soccer. I was doing a lot of ice skating and ballet. That's the standard after school extracurricular activities that were recommended for anybody growing up in former Soviet Union. The fondest memories. I don't focus so much on the hardship of a communist society, but I focus more on like the happy moments. And I think that they're the ones that really etched and formed me like the moments by the lake in the summers or going mushroom picking with my family in the forest. And that I think was really instrumental in my falling in love with nature and finding that force therapy or that nature therapy that we all seek to reconnect when we are living now in such a modernized, technology focused world that we Seek that reconnection with nature to improve our well being.
So at some point my parents realized that their most happiest dreams for their kids are not going to be realized in a communist Russia. Former Soviet units so after a lot of elaboration and a lot of stress, they decided to become immigrants and move to us.
And that was a journey through multiple countries, through Austria and Italy. We were refuges at that point because we had no relatives in the U.S.
and then after, after half a year or so, we finally had these wonderful people that welcomed us into their home in Maryland and were our adopted family that provided us temporary visa and let us settle and live in their home for over a month with their family. And that was really eye opening for me because to have somebody open their home and their family to another family was really generous. And that opened my eyes to generosity of human beings. Because I was exposed to a lot of people who are very harsh and stoic and tough in former Soviet Union. But here in America people were generous and kind and giving. And that's how this family was. And that led me to realize that I want to be that person too. I want to have that mentality to give back and to care and to be more philanthropic with my endeavors in the future. I grew up in Maryland with my family and we had hard time as any immigrants would. It was a lot of hard work on my parents part. It was a lot of studiousness for my brother and myself to do our best in school to realize my parents dreams and our own dreams. And over time as I recognized that I had this passion for science, I really enjoyed volunteering in the local hospital and caring for patients and doing EMT work. Learned EMT based basic training in high school and toward college I decided to go into medicine.
So that's kind of my journey toward the medical field. And then in medical school in Georgetown, I was very open to variety of fields that I could be attracted to. And following up on dermatology was really serendipity because I went from ER to wanting to be a gynecologist to a cardiologist and every time I tried these different rotations they didn't really click in what I initially thought until I was in a hospital.
And I remember doing internal medicine rotation and I had a patient with this rash that nobody could figure out how to treat. So my attending requested a dermatology consultant. And when the dermatology team came about to the hospital to see my patient, they were discussing all the different potential causes of this rash. And for Me, that was so fascinating because I didn't understand how looking at somebody's skin could actually reveal what was happening inside a person, whether they have medical condition like a vitamin deficiency or a thyroid problem, or there was a medication that was given to them at home that could cause this rash. So I was really enamored with the idea of figuring out how to solve internal medical problems by looking at the skin. And the attending noticed that I was really interested in it. And that's when he requested that I come rotate it in dermatology department.
And once I went into dermatology and learned all the versatility that this field has to offer, both medical intellectual challenges as well as all the different procedures that we could do, the biopsy, the surgery, the cosmetic aspect to it, that's when I fell in love with dermatologists, that I could take care of all different humans, be they kids, women or men. And I can do procedures as well as that are life changing, like removing melanoma, as well as transform someone's self esteem by improving their appearance. It was just such a rewarding and meaningful work that I decided that dermatology was my vocation, dermatology was my passion. And I went forward learning all about it in a dermatology rotation and then finishing up medical school. I realized I also like the scientific aspect of dermatology and clinical studies. So before I started my dermatology residency, I decided to do a clinical trials fellowship in Harvard with Alexa Kimball. She's a well renowned dermatologist, but also researcher. And for a year before starting my residency worked on different clinical studies to research different medications, be it the topical, cosmeceutical or biological that we use for eczema and psoriasis. And I thought that was such a gratifying aspect to start your career in dermatology because you really understand the backing of science and data that comes to give the credibility to the medications and different procedures that we do and the medications we prescribe for dermatology.
And then dermatology residency was at University of Miami, which was a phenomenal experience.
And I am absolutely grateful to all the different attendings and other residents that were with me. And Jackson Hospital is, that's how I ended up in Miami, is truly rich in giving us that incredible experience as dermatology trainees to a variety of different terminological presentations. So I ended up in Miami. So even though I grew up in Maryland, ended up in Miami and stayed because of my residency, so at University of Miami and just Jackson Memorial Hospital, you get to learn the most esoteric zebras of infectious and autoimmune conditions and also has a strong foundation in surgical experience as well as cosmetic experience. There's a lot of different aspects of dermatology that got to learn and I'm always going to be grateful. And so when I graduated, I fell in love with Miami area because I really had a tough time living in the north, Maryland and Boston in the wintertime I have this like what's called seasonal affect disorder, which is I get very blue in the winter when it's very dark and dreary and cold. And so because Miami has an amazing climate and awesome winter and warm, I didn't experience that. So after a few years living here, I said, there's no way I'm going to move anywhere else. I'm staying in Florid. And there's a huge need for dermatologists here in Florida because the sun is strong and there's a lot of sun exposure. So a lot of individuals unfortunately are not careful being safe in the sun. And there's significant amount of skin cancer in Florida. So because of the need for providing that dermatology care for a variety of communities, I decided to stay in Florida and start my family here. So initially for the first five to seven years, but it was about seven years I worked at different clinics in Miami, I worked in South Miami, I worked in Broward County, I worked at cosmetic institute with Dr. Leslie Bauman, I did some clinical research.
And then over time I realized what I enjoyed the most is practicing as a general dermatologist. So dermatologists that could provide medical, surgical and cosmetic care in one setting. And I really enjoyed working in Hollywood, in Broward county because I felt there was a good balance of patients, patient base, it was very family oriented. And I did want to start a family in that, in around that community. And also the school systems were really good in there in that area. And so I navigated toward focusing mostly working out of Broward at practice called Miners Dermatology. It's a father and son practice and we stay in touch and very friendly. But over time while practicing there, I met my current co founder of our practice called Precision Skin and Body Institute. And her name is Dr. Leslie Clark Loesser and she is an incredible strong leader and I'm proud to say my co founder of our institute. So we were both employees at Miners Dermatology practicing general dermatology for about five to seven years together. And we got to know each other over time and what we realized is that the way we practice Dermatology is slightly different than from other practitioners because we really value educating our patients and taking the time explaining the diagnosis and how to take the various aspects of algorithm of holistic approach of resolving whatever the skin condition or skin issue that presents. If it's acne, well, it's not just here's the medicine, go do it. It's also you have to take care of your well being. You have to do your best with the healthy habits such as good sleep and nutrition and exercise. So taking that time is not always afforded to all the dermatologists, but we really enjoyed doing that and educating our patients that are other factors in place and they're multifactorial aspect to your acne or eczema, psoriasis, whatever the condition. And taking the time and educating our patients on some protect practices such as, you know, you got to use your sunscreen every day, try not to be out there outdoors between 10 and 3 because that's the peak UV index intensity that could be really damaging for the skin and the others.
So over time we realized because we, we, you know, our approach to dermatology is a little more unique and we wanted to provide that more personalized, high quality, exceptional care for our patients, we started thinking about starting our own practice too.
The more we thought about it, the more we realized we have to find a location that will work best for us and also for the community of South Florida. And there was a missing area of need, specifically in JV Florida. There weren't any dermatologists when we were looking and it was very close to where we lived at that time. I had established myself in Hollywood, but we bought a house in Davie, Florida with my family and she lived in Plantation. So those are really close to Davie. And because both of us had family, so kids, we didn't want to be far from where we practiced when we lived. So we looked and Davey clicked in and we started looking at different places that we could settle in Davey and provide that community dermatological comprehensive care than we envisioned. And once we found the location, we decided to move forward and start our practice.
And there were a lot of challenges along the way. Like one of the most important challenges is when we did find the location and the practice and we signed the lease for precision. A month later, I discovered I was pregnant. And two months later, as we're trying to plan the start of the opening of the practice, two months later, I found out it's twins. And I remember turning toward Leslie and a car after we just met with like loan Officers and signed a loan and signed the lease and found contractor. So I turned to her, said, I don't know if we can do this because this is going to be really, really hard.
And the date we have to start the practice and the whole build out to be done is not going to be ideal date. And she said, why, what's going on? And I explained to her, I'm pregnant, I'm going to have twins right around the same time that we're planned to open the practice.
And she looked at me and she said, first of all, congratulations. I always say going to be grateful for that response because it's, it's just shows underlines how incredible of an individual she is and how strong family value is established in her. And she looked at me and she said, Mariana, congratulations. And absolutely we can do it because it's the two of us and we will support each other and we'll get through it the best we can.
And we have amazing support system, our families to get us through this. And we did all our research, whatever that we needed to do to try to do our best. But we will not delay this dream of starting the practice. We'll just move forward. So I had my twins in December and then we opened our practice in the beginning of February. So it was a very challenging and very stressful time. But it happened. And it just underlines as an entrepreneur the aspect of progress over perfection. Just sometimes timing is not going to be perfect. Sometimes we won't know everything there we need to know. Sometimes we will need to lean a lot on each other or support of our families and friends and other people who may know better. Like I had very little business sense when I started the practice and I've learned a lot from mentors and from Leslie's husband, my husband, who are more financial business sense than myself, as well as over time learning myself and figuring out what that aspect of business and marketing is all about. Because I knew very little about that. But I just knew that I had the passion and I really wanted to help people with their skin and improve their health and the quality of their skin. And that I think is what always helped me and my partner to get through the most challenging parts of establishing and growing the practice. And is having that lighthouse that why, why are we doing what we're doing? Right? Because that. And once you know the mission, which is to provide that exceptional, high quality, comprehensive and also cutting edge like innovative care, then you have to kind of focus and align yourself with whatever decisions come your way to stay true and have that integrity along the path.
And so time went on in our practice. Due to our dedication and commitment to our patients and the kind of care, education, focused care and personalized care we provided, we grew. And what was missing over time is we realized that the main dream, again coming back to the mission, the comprehensive care, was not possible if we just stayed in our small space that we initially opened up practice.
We really wanted to bring a Mohs surgeon into our practice that's a specialized dermatology skin cancer removal surgeon that could help our patients with skin cancer removals in the most intricate cosmetic areas. We would refer.
But our patients were very displeased and would voice, I'd really love to have someone in your practice, we trust you, we want to stay within the practice. At that time, it was impossible.
So we decided to work toward that goal and truly complete that loop of comprehensive care. And about a year and a half ago, we expanded, we doubled our space and it took about a year and a half to build it out as we were still in our regional space, which was on one way easier because we didn't have to relocate, but harder because as you can imagine, doing construction and building as you're working is very stressful. But thankfully everything worked out and we were able to expand and bring in other providers, including Mohs surgeon. And now we have an excellent Mohs surgeon, Dr. Jordan Rosen, who's actually doing Mohs surgery as we speak and removing skin cancers. And it's really gratifying and it's amazing that we can provide that kind of of service to our community and have all our patients in one place and have trusted providers ourselves with Leslie as Well as our PAs, who do a lot of our medical cosmetic dermatology as well as Dr. Jordan doing more of general dermatology as well as most in one practice. And then you did touch upon my skincare line, Stamina Cosmetics. So, yeah, so Stamina Cosmetics is something that came to me as a. A strong passion around Covid.
So I think a lot of us were going through that challenging time and stress.
And I always loved skincare ever since I was a little girl. Especially any skincare that's natural based, botanical based, just really attracted, I think that has. As a nature lover, when I was going back to my roots, I really enjoyed the aspect of how nature gives to us through all these different botanicals and that can be employed for a variety of internal medications as well as skincare.
So I knew all my life that I would want to start a skincare something using natural ingredients. That improves the health and beauty of the skin. And during COVID I saw a lot of pathology in my patients of where the stress of COVID so the actual environment. There were a lot of other issues, political, economic pressures that Covid created as vibrations. And my patients were really stressed out and anxious. I was very stressed out, anxious. And that would present as amplification on their skin as either acne breakouts, eczema got worse, psoriasis got worse. So the skin deteriorated in quality because of significant stress, that emotional and psychological stress that patients experience.
And I felt really this voice calling to me saying how can we improve our skin stamina? How can we improve the strength and resilience of our skin when we have so much of that external pressure as well as internal? Because the stress has a lot to do with our immune, hormonal as well as neurological system. So what can we do? Enhance that and connect that to the neurological aspect, psychological aspect. So also enhance our mental well being as we using the skincare. So I did a lot of research at that time on all the different type of ingredients that are there that can be helpful for skin through these different amplifications of stress induced skin pathologies. And I also went deep into integrative medicine because there was more evidence provided for that integrative approach. So meditation, different aspects of nutrition, mindful practices.
And so I wanted to infuse a skincare line with wellness practices, mindful skincare rituals such as affirmations, I'm just reach out and show you. So this is one of the products of Stamina cosmetics. I don't know if you are able to try some of them, but they all have affirmations on them like you got this to improve mental stamina. And they all are called stamina cosmetics because they are infused with various adaptogenic ingredients. So Adaptogens are the ingredients that I found that can help help us overcome our skin, overcome external and internal stressors. They resist stress by bringing our skin back into balance. So when things are too hyper, they bring it, calm it down. When the things are undernourished, they enhance the resources of our skin in order to bring it more balanced. And so I'm really proud of that aspect that there are this unique category of of skin ingredients that can help our skin and discovering and tapping into them. Because adaptogens was something that was really a marketing fluff for a long time for skincare nutraceuticals. But now more and more evidence being presented that they have a value both in skincare as supplements in order to help us deal with whatever the external aggressors and internal stressors that we have. The more we learn about them and the more we implement them as part of our skincare ritual as well as part of our daily lives and tune them to the most precision, the more we can take advantage of our skin longevity and help our skin to stay stronger and more radiant over time.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Awesome. And then if you don't mind touching on just the investments and and where you learned kind of the business skills skill set, I guess things you would change about starting your skincare line or starting your own practice versus being because it seems like you have a lot of work experience like I do.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Anybody who is an entrepreneur needs to do due diligence of research, right? So research comes from sitting down and reading books. For instance, I touched upon the importance of anchoring with a why there's an incredible business development perspective development book called Start with why. You familiar with it called Simon Sinek. It's by the author, Simon Sinek. Okay. So this book is called Start with why and it's a book that can guide understanding what how to explore your value system and your goal of what you're trying to do your best to accomplish with your business. What is the problem that you're trying to solve and what are you passionate about, why you want to start it and helps you to go along the journey that when you are ready to implement and find investors it is truly something that's not going to be as challenging because you can translate the story of your why to the investors. Right. So investments is going to be either from banking industry investors could be your loved ones, family and friends. Whether it's something that is, that is something that you. You wanted to go online and there's an investment like a sharing investments. But my skincare line is self funded. I founded it myself in my family and over time I've learned that it is challenging to self fund your own skincare line. But if you if it's something that I truly believe in and I know can have a significant impact positive difference in the future and current and future and a lot of patients patients skin and their health and beauty of their skin, their longevity through the adaptogen through infusing wellness practices.
I believe strongly that it is something that more and more investors will start backing. But for now skincare line is fully self funded. It's an indie line and as it's generating revenue I'm reinvesting that revenue back into growing the skincare line and still leaning on those main pillars of being clean line, no harmful synthetics, and then clinical. So having the safety and efficacy reviewed and the scientific studies done, guided by dermatologists and also adaptogenic and always focusing on wellness.
So staying focused on that and speaking that same story and believing in that story is what keeps having that integrity along the path. And I feel that strongly that investments will grow and will come. But for now, it's in the growing phase. The company's in a growing way, in a growing phase. The Stamina Cosmetics. And it's something that is still to be realized. When it comes to Precision Skin Institute, we lean heavy on banking. So there are banks that will support young medical providers, providers that also have a goal to have a practice that has a unique story, that has a unique fit within a community. And so ROI fit the community. We wanted to provide that unique, high quality care for our South Florida community in dermatology.
And the banks that supported our initial launch as well as the scale up and expansion of our practice believed in us. And that is why we were able to secure the funds for our practice at Precision.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: And we have to wrap up a little bit. What would you tell a young dermatologist like me? You know, I kind of look up to you, as I mentioned.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: When I was at Cleveland Clinic, Dave would always rave about your practice and we definitely had a lot of patients in common. I feel like I'm kind of following a little bit in your footsteps of having my own practice. What would you say to someone in their solo practice in the early stages of their career?
[00:28:41] Speaker A: The most important thing is stay true to your integrity. I think that it's easy to get swayed by new and exciting new devices and new procedures that are coming out. The world of dermatology is really evolving at a very high pace, especially aesthetic dermatology. There are new energy and laser devices and threads and all these different procedures and even the these skincare that's being implemented at the same time with the different devices like salmon sperm, type of polynucleotides that we hear about. Stay true to your integrity of truly being a credible science backed dermatologist and evaluate all the technology that's presented to you carefully. So instead of jumping on board of anything new just because it's trendy and your patients come ask you, I mean, almost every day I have patients that come ask me about the Sam Common sperm. And even though it's very exciting and trendy on social media, social media is very loud marketing tool. It is very important to differentiate between myths and again, fluff versus what's truly scientific. So keep on learning and investigating on your own and don't jump on a bandwagon of being a cowgirl. An adventure of something doesn't have enough of the safety and efficacy scientific backing and that will give you more of credibility and trust and respect from your patients long term. And then you have more of a loyal patient based long term.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Thank you Dr. Mariana and just keep up the great work and continuing to serve an example for people like me that are starting on their own and the rest of your patients, thank you.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: It's a pleasure and I wish you all the best. Best stay in touch. Anything unique then let me know. I'm here for you. Awesome.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Thanks Dr. Mariana. Have a great day.
