Everyone. I’ve been out of the country for several weeks, just returning New Years and catching up. I leave again tomorrow for a week of skiing. There was a comment from Dee that I saw before I left and skimming through the new messages, I didn’t see it. By the way, commenting on the website for me is something of a hobby and also sort of a public service. Plus, I also get value from it. But it takes a back seat to other issues and so I’ve been gone awhile. But I do want to respond to the comment because I don’t want to leave the wrong impression.
Dee made a comment; something to the effect, you are a dermatologist, aren’t you?
Technically the truth is no. I haven’t made a big deal about my background. I have quite a bit of knowledge in dermatology and it doesn’t take much dermatology to do laser hair removal. Also, my wife is a dermatologist and she is the “medical director” of the company. I run the company. And I am the one who is most involved and knowledgeable about lasers, physics, and their effect on skin.
My medical speciality is Public Health and Preventive Medicine. I trained at Walter Reed and in the Army. But it is more complicated than that. I specialize in epidemiology, which is the study of research methods, statistics, and applying medical concepts to groups. Whereas a more traditional doctor applies medical concepts to an individual, an epidemiologist applies medical concepts to a group of people. Initially the field was developed to work to prevent epidemics (hence the name) but over the years the techniques have proven valuable in all fields. Laser hair removal is especially one of them. It is one of the reasons why we have figured out a lot of things that others are just now beginning to appreciate. I look at patterns and commonalities among our clients and try to understand why the patterns exist. And for that I use epidemiological techniques. We also have significant data systems to track this stuff. But it does come down to a way of looking at things that is different from the average doctor (dermatologist or not). Put that in combination with ten years of adult medicine, a strong dermatologic background and a practicing cosmetic dermatologist as a partner, and it has been a very good combination.
And just to finish the story, my undergraduate is from a strong engineering school (West Point) where I specialized in electrical engineering and physics, and did work with lasers. I was also involved in teaching and even taught a class on laser use in medicine to dermatologists in 1990. So, it is like, without knowing it, I’ve prepared myself to be an expert on lasers. Oh, and I have an MBA and an MPH also.
So I am not a dermatologist. I think given that I have a dermatologist to fill in some technical gaps that I didn’t know (and their aren’t very many in this field), I think being an epidemiologist is a much more valuable choice of specialization. One, which unless you have worked with a good epidemiologist is hard to understand. But then, of course, I’m biased.