Interview with Dermatologist Dr. Sandra Lee

hi everyone its Andrea from Android chilly calm thank you so much for watching this video I am so excited for this video today it's something that you guys have been asking for a ton because as you know I'm trying to interview medical specialists from all different fields of medicine to bring you information about all the different fields of medicine and what it's like in different careers and one of the top requested fields that you guys are asking for is dermatology and so today I have the most incredible special guest for you today who is the dermatologist and I can't wait for us to have a conversation where I can ask her all about her career and hopefully shed some light on dermatology for all of you guys interested in the field so I hope you like it don't forget to subscribe to this channel so you never miss a video new videos on Monday and if you have any more questions or you want to connect more you can always email me find me on my blog andrea to lucam Instagram or Twitter alright let's get started with our interview hi everyone so I am here with dr. Sandra Lee I'm so excited to have you here today and basically I could do this huge introduction you're such a fantastic dermatologist but if it's okay I just like you to know that personally I can see well so could you just do a little introduction about yourself for us and kind of tell us who you are and things like that absolutely I'm dr. Sandra Lee I I'm a board-certified dermatologist in private practice in Oakland California which is just outside of Los Angeles of Southern California I I went to medical school probably about hello a little over a decade ago and I am from this area but I went to school out in the East Coast and so I went to medical school I went to I did completed a dermatology residency I did an additional year fellowship and and this is where I am now great well thank you so much for being with us and for everybody who doesn't know dr. Li has an amazing presence kind of in the media you've been on the doctors and all kinds of other public media she writes about dermatology speaks about skin health and now she's kind of taking the internet by storm with your YouTube channel and your Instagram and I'll link all of that below in case anyone's not following you I don't know why they wouldn't be right some people don't like the things that I might post I mean in a nutshell what you're speaking about is this sort of I mean I've been doing some segments for TV for probably about five years or so it all started with the doctors you know I live near Los Angeles so the doctors tapes at paramount studios in Hollywood and I do a little I do some things for some other little shows like you know the local Fox 11 News and and that sort of thing but just recently I have I I got a little bit into Instagram and I and I realized that when I was posting videos of pimple popping or blackhead extractions of things like that which actually as a dermatologist we don't really do on a regular basis they were kind of popular and from there it just kind of blossomed and I'll tell you what's so interesting I know this is not really in the you know we I know we're gonna talk about so much basic stuff yeah in the beginning but just in general what has been so interesting about this is it's kind of grown and are you my youtube channel and my Instagram have actually grown quite significantly in the last within this last year maybe like six months or so and it has been like stratospheric the attention that it gets compared to just in fact doing shows international television segments so it is amazing it has shown me the power of social media and I think this is kind of a new area that we as physicians we have to kind of tread a fine line here too but is that this is a whole new time for us to in the ability to do this and so you know I think you yours you are also a pioneer in this you know in social media and posting a lot of your videos and how-to videos for it on YouTube so you know we're both kind of new at this yeah and I like that we're both young you're younger than I am and we're physicians and we're doing this on YouTube so that's nice yes 100% I'm so with you there it's wonderful my husband actually was the one who discovered all of your stuff and told me yeah cuz obsessed he's a he's a PA a physician okay yes but he's just like immediately was so captured and engrossed and all of your stuff and and then I started reading about you and I think everything that you're doing and showing all the different aspects of dermatology is so great so I guess to kind of back up one of the main reasons I have you here is because I'm I get so many requests and comments and emails from people every day asking can you can you interview this type specialist and can you talk about this field and dermatology is by far one of the most common fields that people want to know about and they want to hear from a dermatologist about kind of what the path is to derm what life is like and so maybe if you could just kind of like back up to when you were pre-med or in medical school and kind of how did you choose dermatology why did you choose derm and what was the path like so let me ask you when people asking these questions these are people that are wanting are interested in going into medical school or interested in being physicians right I think that is a student is pre-med yeah okay cuz that's interesting to me because you know as I said I'm probably at least ten year ten years ahead of you and I think in my time I mean dermatology was also very competitive at that time too but I don't think a lot of people were necessarily seeking it out I mean I know it's not a required rotation for us right medical students so it's a little bit harder to know whether you're interested in it yeah and I think that just like ophthalmology is similar oftentimes there are people who really find it may be somewhat late in their whole medical students career and they realize oh my gosh I would have liked this that I didn't really realize that it was something that I would have liked you know because they don't really they're not forced to do a rotation like that like it's not a required rotation that is right yep yep I feel the same way because I didn't I don't know a lot about derm and I think I would have really liked it but I didn't know anything about it yeah so let's see I I went to I went to undergrad at UCLA so I'm from Southern California and I applied all around the nation you know in California it's a little bit harder and very competitive to get into medical schools at least yeah Mike because there's so few in such a large area and you know I kind of make the comparison that and I went to school in Philadelphia in Philadelphia was like five schools within the whole small little you know city as opposed to five in the whole you know Southern California area so I think about 30 percent of my class was from California Wow part I went to hanaman University School of Medicine which is now Drexel oh yeah and alright so I went to medical school there and I my father's a dermatologist okay so that's kind of the key as to what you know I was already very exposed to dermatology I knew what it was about I knew that it was a great specialty my father did not in any way push me in one direction or another certainly he may have said oh yes it is a great specialty but he wouldn't say oh you must do this you must say no and I think I the part of the reason why I'm I pursued it was because I'm very similar to my father I see you know he enjoys he enjoyed his work and I was exposed to it and we had textbooks all around the house certainly I think a while in his office you know during when it in my summers when I was a teenager and and then when you go to medical school you hear things about it that it is a great and very competitive specialty like yours is too too to apply for and to get a position in so I kind of already knew early on and just the thing is it's not easy to get so right I feel extremely fortunate that that I have a position in gym eyes like that I got a position as a dermatology resident and my husband is also dermatologists so we work together we took over my father's practice and there's a lot of husband-wife dermatologists I think a lot of the meet maybe in residency but we met in medical school so we went to the same Medical School and he I think when he first went to medical school he had ideas of becoming like orthopedic surgeon okay but when he saw their mythology he realized oh this is kind of specialty for me so I think he he we joke that you know he kind of rode my coattails there but not Billy he's extremely intelligent I know his dad he definitely got a position on his own but we were lucky to both get you know positions intimately though we were in different states you know we got married and III did my residency in Illinois at Southern Illinois University wonderful program and my husband did his in New York he's from New York okay in New York City Wow that part yeah so we were in the first three years of our of our married life I think we were in different time zones wow that's just that's kind of what you have to do you know I we're alone and the thing is that when it's finite and you know that it's gonna end it makes it a lot easier yeah okay so I did my residency in at Southern Illinois University and wonderful people wonderful program after that I did I got great Mohs surgery training there we had a wonderful most surgeon and so really you're my second and third year in as a dermatology resident I got a lot of training there to backtrack it's very similar to your kind of ophthalmology where we have one first year of transitional transitional year like you did and then you know as your first year you and your first year of Dermott up ophthalmology residency and three years for UTI right no I so I did the same thing I did a transitional medicine year and then I did three I'm did three years of dermatology and then I decided to do a fellowship as well which was in San Diego it was like a cosmetic laser and surgical fellowship okay so that's where I actually did it was a very well-known where internationally renowned dermatologists Richard Fitzpatrick so really got exposed to all the kinds of lasers that there were really that are available and let's do a lot of cosmetic surgery I think in California where a little more or a little more cosmetically inclined and there's a big overlap between us and cosmetic or plastic surgeons right I learned to do I mean one of the things I do is liposuction I do I did trained I did hair transplants you know why don't I space lifts up her lower blepharoplasty I still do I still do upper Bluffs and so you know a lot of different things laser resurfacing that kind of thing so a lot of more cosmetics we learn there uh-huh and then after that I am that was in like 2004 I think we completed that and that was I had a most pregnant during that but through my fellowships so I had my first kid a boy and I have two boys now who are nine and ten wow that's so great that's so so great I mean you had an amazing path and you're doing incredible things what kind of things I mean you had all this exposure with your dad but what else about dermatology drew to the field you said kind of the lifestyle you liked and then the surgery yeah I you know what and it's all very what's nice about dermatology is it's you can do there's so many things with the end of ecology that you can specialize and that are so very different I think similar to yours but yeah I do that you know you could do pediatric dermatology and just see kids or you could do em you know dermatology when you're working in a lab or you could do d'amato pathology where you're just reading slide skin skin slides or um I'm more surgically inclined that's what I like to do so probably the things that I was thinking about or maybe plastic surgery or some kind of surgery but you know that lifestyle and you know it's it's sort of I can't say I'm just kind of generalizing it but maybe a little more sexist they're a little difficult to really go into a specialty like that I don't want to get in trouble because it's not always like that well and especially years ago I think every year I guess better yes right and I think it you can do a lot of the things that Plastic Surgeons can do but you don't really have that as difficult of a residency training and also you're you know you don't do the same all the same things but you can really use your hands and do some very intricate surgeries and not have to go through that kind of tough lifestyle and nor either as like with you we don't really deal with a lot of emergencies as dermatologists there's very few dermatological urgency so it's a nice lifestyle especially as a woman I think them in the past was of course like all specialties mostly men but now I think that probably the majority may be female it's very nice to be a dermatologist and be female and have a family and yeah you know your your work is not your life you know so you enjoy your work but you have other things that you meet you know that are part of your life too that are equally important and and you know I think like things like with you too similarly you deal with healthy people in general and it's very you know you can solve things easily I mean there's a lot of other specialties were you're dealing with so many complicated issues and you're not really gonna get to an answer or really able to feel like okay I did that I fixed it and it's done all this chronic condition yeah so if that kind of thing and also we have such a variety and maybe seems really young we see really old you see male/female different races so and people are in general are very happy to see you because they're in general pretty healthy they're not dreading seeing you because those kind of things so develop relationships with them you develop long-standing relationships with them you get to know parents and then you get to know the kids because you see the kids for acne and that when they grow up they might ask you for you know anti-aging advice this was the things you develop long-standing relationships with people which is from the nexus yeah that's so great so like you said dermatology is definitely a very competitive one of the most competitive fields for all of those reasons that you stated it's a wonderful career and so what advice would you give to people interested in derm or what kinds of things help do you think helped you match because I mean it's it's definitely one of the hardest to match into and people need to think about it they want to know what they can do um you know I I think it's difficult it's um a lot of people do I guess it's such a small group of people yeah that you the an edge is to be able to know somebody personally because when you're coming to interview in a group and there's so many really really qualified candidates how are they going to differentiate you versus another if they don't know you at all if they happen to know you and because they know that if you're gonna even though this person may be really qualified on paper are they coming along with you because you're gonna spend so much time with them it's those Porter's the personalities have to match so I think that going and rotating with people and hopefully you guys click and hopefully they like you and they don't dislike you number you know that's the most important and also you're doing research and things like that to bolster I mean and everybody kind of knows that I really think that one of the keys is really choosing strategically being a little bit strategic with that I mean you don't go to the heart go don't go to the top program and expect that I mean not everybody else is gonna try to fight for that same spot and you know it's gonna be a lot harder to get a spot even though you may have a great personality because there's probably a lot of bunch of other people the same way so you know I think being strategic is probably in the end that ways and and willing to willing to live somewhere that you know you wouldn't consider moving to I mean I think a lot of specialties you can choose wherever you want to go so they'll say I only want to live in Las Vegas so I only want to live in Minnesota and you can choose that well I didn't have a choice you know yeah I was living in Springfield Illinois I didn't know anybody there I didn't have any family or any friends close by but luckily I had a wonderful program know and some people aren't so lucky so you just have to when people get a position in dermatology you are very happy to have that position you're probably not going to give it up even if feel that you're not happy where you are you're going to suck it up and do it and um you just have to do am i answering that you know what I mean you are you want to think about it and I guess think seriously is this something that I'm willing to try hard to get and you know have in your mind that it might be something you may not be able to get you know do you just fit how about you know backups and things like that yeah so it's luck involved I think that that is great advice because everybody says you know get good grades get good board scores do research I think the away rotation is excellent advice because it is it's just like ophthalmology it's such a small community and who you know matters it really does and then realizing and that realism that you just stated that it's super competitive and if it's what you want to do you're not you might not match it your top spot and you would need to be happy wherever you get a spot and understand that that's how it is that's so true that's great advice it's part of willing to sacrifice that is for this finite amount of time remember I mean when we're young we think this is it as little why I'm stuck here you know but you got to remember this is not they did the big picture yeah yeah that's so great and then can you just kind of take us through like a day in the life like what is your job like what do you get to do I know we get to see a lot of it on social media but what's kind of your day or your week like you you'll be there don't you worry you know when you have kids and you just have a lot of as a woman and it's not just different dermatologists not all my life it's like being a mom being a husband you know trying to juggle all of these things and there's always guilt you know oh you're not there at your child's something to play or at their presentation because you have to be at work or you feel guilty you cancelling work because you have to be you want to be there for your kids so you know it's just I I seriously live day by day week by week I mean it's just um you know you want you want you just you you you're a rate limiting step that's one thing in medicine that is different than other people that your friends are there in business or something I mean they can you have to be there to be able to generate income I mean young needs to be part of it so you know we work this long to try to you know get in the position we are but then you are limited by what you you know that you have to be there but you know that is semantics living and also all about sort of thing but it is um you know so anyways my day I wake up I tell I take my kids to school then I go to work and you know I I my job at my position at work is a little more it's very broad I do a lot of different things which I like but it's also can be hectic I mean I think I I have back in medical school I did not know that I was a type-a personality but I think now I realize that I am like a Triple A personality I I have to do two other things while I'm watching TV at night you know I just I am like that kind of person that I like to multitask I feel like maybe I'm good at it but you know who knows like probably not so good as opposed to doing a single thing but um you know I think I do gel on a general dermatology I do a lot of skin exams I like skin I like surgery so I do a lot of skin care sir surgery you know um Mohs micrographic surgery was just when we remove skin cancers as you know I mean take as little view as possible but then we the part of that is being creative and creating like flaps and graphs to flows in areas that you can't see that hopefully you can't see that anything was done there and I also do cosmetics like what we call soft cosmetics though talks and filler and laser treatments for various things anti-aging blood vessels that sort of thing and I also do some cosmetic surgery mainly liposuction this is left with such an under local anesthesia called true tumescent liposuction and so yeah I got a bunch of different things I mean my husband is more the general dermatologist he is the okay he is the general dermatologist and also the one who handles the business I like to joke that he's the brains and I'm the personality here because I just come into work because I can't even you know my patients will ask me insurance questions and I'll say talk to the office manager I don't I just I just work here it's hard to you know one thing and we all know this they don't really teach us we become business people and something you kind of learn along the way there are things that I feel I've learned from my father that make me hopefully a good dermatologist but a good physician in general then I'll relay to you I think there is really good important advice and just you know nice thing about they were talking you couldn't make it what you want if you just want to see acne and warts all day you could do that no you feel you can do that if you don't I mean I know dermatologists who but in practice and they absolutely say I don't want to see any rashes I will not see any you know rashes I only want to see people with skin cancer so you couldn't kind of because there's not it depends on where you live I struggle and in the country or where you practice but you know you can kind of make it what you want to and hopefully then enjoy it and enjoy what you do so so all right well do you think there's anything else that you want to kind of impart onto the budding dermatologists of the world good spotting dermatitis well if they watch I think one of the things so I have a youtube channel called dr. Sandra Lee also known as dr. pimple popper because that's where the whole name kind of the catchy name that started on my Instagram and you know we have now have a website actually dr. pimple popper calm to sign moves right where big over there and I'll like all of that in the comments so that people yeah get it but I think one thing what I want to say about that is I get a lot of comments that oh my gosh this is like my dream job this is what I would love to do now I want to become a dermatologist but you know that's really not truly dermatology I mean it it but it is not what we do most I mean I would say now it's become more like maybe 10 to 20 percent some days of my of my day but before it was like 2% yeah you know what was lucky because you don't we don't really do comedone extraction right um it's not covered by insurance so we usually don't do that for any reason but now I've kind of found that people like it and so this allows me to showcase dermatology and I think I try to put in a little bit about the other things that I do so you know at least I can show them a little bit about what dermatology is about and what I like about it but it is not necessarily what all dermatologists are going to do you know there might be doing something a little different much different even from from what I do like you know you're saying yeah that's pretty much it no that's great advice because yeah I think people could look at your social media and think that like this is what dermatology is what is co-ed a type I squeeze blackhead radar squeezes cyst or something and I've done more cysts in the last year than my entire career Wow so um you know normally I would avoid sis you know they're messy and they're not you know but now I know I know I might become a knowing a little edge Missy's I can kind of predict what assist is gonna do before I just okay like I don't have to remove that you can if you want to you know cuz they're not you know they're not like they're not life-threatening and I'm not important that you need to remove them right but it's just something that's very interesting and I think for you too cuz you're kind of in this whole social media thing that you know you'll be able to do things like this and show people what you can do as an ophthalmologist one thing I will say too about this is that what's nice about social media is that you can show your personality and when you show that and you show how you interact with patients it it actually yours you to others I mean they kind of feel like they know you and they feel safe then you know cuz they know if you're gonna choose a doctor you don't know who one more person is compared to another you like meeting a stranger right and they're gonna examine your eyes or examine your skin so I think um it actually is very good publicity for a any dermatologist to kind of show what your personality is in videos like that yeah you're definitely right I think people want to know who you are as a person and so then kind of getting that snapshot into the personal side of you out you're outside of work I don't think that that D values you professionally at all I think that just makes you a more rounded person and lets you connect with your patients even more that's how I feel about it and I went to this big social media summit at Mayo and they were saying you know we as physicians have to meet our patients where they are and where they are is on YouTube and on Instagram and that's true and so if we're putting our interaction there then that's a good thing mhm yeah I think it just it it's definitely extremely powerful it is and you know I think it shows I think for you too you're young you have a great personality I'm sure you relate well with your patients and that will only only increase your respect really amongst patients they will you know on one thing that's interesting that my father told me was that he said you can be an excellent dermatologist in terms of go to the top school be the top of your class be so you know book smart but have most terrible bedside manner and people patients would think you're a terrible doctor right on the other side you can be not so high in your class not not the smartest dermatologists but you can have a wonderful bedside manner and they will trust you and they will love you and hopefully you have a little bit of both you know but I think that no that side manner is actually a lot more important than I think they they really teach you in medical school it is very important it's just something that you learn and something that can also I think just party personality so I just try to show my personality that I'm not higher than or more important than them I speak to them like I would my my family members or my girlfriends or my friends and that's it one of the things is that it's transcends is not just my what I'm doing as a dermatologist treating patients but it becomes more like you know have you ever seen do you want to follow on it's from Facebook humans in New York for example do you know that yeah it becomes like more like you're doing little snapshots of people's lives you know where you you have this interact with them and you hear what they hear what we talked about and you learn a little bit especially you don't know who they are right well you just so it's kind of like a human nature kind of piece you know so that is what makes it interesting like a little little conversations they're so great yeah that's the part of it that was just really nice so yeah and I think that you know like you can't reach people in a healthcare perspective too because people watch your videos because they think it's fun but then they might think oh I should probably go get that mole checked because they you know like you're reaching people when you don't even realize yeah yeah exactly are you making it not scary yes it's not so scary to CD and ophthalmologist or dermatologists or surgeon because look this is what they're doing right right yep I love that yeah well thank you you're so welcome thank you for a but oh yes you are my favorite dermatologist okay good luck with everything though I'm sure you don't need that I'm sure you gonna do quick you're so sweet thank you so so much get them behind you care

Channel: Andrea Tooley

Views: 54,587

Rating: 4.9375811 out of 5

Keywords: Dermatology (Medical Specialty), Pre-medical (Field Of Study), pre-med, residency, medicine, Interview

Id: CvKS_AWF3R0

Length: 31min 35sec (1895 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 26 2015