Originally born in Cuba to Lebanese parents, Leslie Rohaidy’s, P.A.-C., AAOPM, story truly personifies the American Dream. As a family medicine physician, her mother was a major influence on her choice to enter the medical profession. Through her own blood, sweat and tears, Rohaidy’s mother was able to start her own private practice and improve her children’s lives and opportunities for the future.
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Originally born in Cuba to Lebanese parents, Leslie Rohaidy’s, P.A.-C., AAOPM, story truly personifies the American Dream. As a family medicine physician, her mother was a major influence on her choice to enter the medical profession. Through her own blood, sweat and tears, Rohaidy’s mother was able to start her own private practice and improve her children’s lives and opportunities for the future.
“It was just very inspirational and that served as a very strong foundation for me professionally. She was also a fantastic role model. There were not that many women in STEM in the 80s and she started that journey in the 60s and 70s, so it was very cool to have that as a role model.”
Embodying the American Dream
Inspired by her mother’s example, Rohaidy decided halfway through her undergraduate education to steer away from her original interest in law and litigation and enter the medical field. Rohaidy explains, “Midway into my undergraduate education I took a hard turn and said, 'You know, I think I want to just devote my life, my career to science. Mom, how do you feel about that?' And she said, 'You know, it’s hard but I’m fully supportive.'”
With her mother’s endorsement, Rohaidy began her journey to becoming a medical physician. However, due to the competitiveness of the U.S. system, she decided to accept an admissions offer abroad, where she completed most of her medical schooling. While in medical school abroad, Rohaidy was already married to her husband (now of 12 years), but technology like FaceTime that we take for granted today didn’t yet exist. The modern convenience social media has brought to communicating with distant loved ones was barely emerging, meaning she had to travel regularly back and forth to the U.S. to maintain their relationship, see family and catch up on U.S. comforts.
“I was in a very remote island community. If the chicken shipment didn’t arrive, we wouldn’t have chicken, electricity would go in and out, etc. I needed certain creature comforts to thrive, so I would come to the U.S. every so often. Every time that I came and compared myself to other people in my age cohort, I felt kind of old and tired looking. Fast forward to when I started doing rotations, and I just felt like medical school had turned me into a different person visually and from a stress perspective.”
Standing at the Crossroads
When one door closes, another opens, and the same is true of Rohaidy’s medical school experience. Rather than remain in a physically and mentally draining situation, she turned her problem into a solution. In a twist of fate, Rohaidy found her calling when she began seeking cosmetic treatments to reverse the damage caused by the stress of medical school. “I started looking for interventions and solutions, things that I could do to make myself feel better. I thought that I was a beautiful person in my early 20s, and I felt like I no longer looked like myself. I started seeking consults and that is what piqued my interest in aesthetic dermatology," says Rohaidy.
This was when Rohaidy’s path to a successful and fulfilling career in medical aesthetics truly began. After growing disheartened by the career path of a foreign medical physician, she decided to change directions, re-credentialing herself as a P.A. with a focus in plastic surgery, cosmetic medicine and cosmetic dermatology. While searching for solutions, Rohaidy noticed the fragmented nature of medical aesthetics at the time, as well as the limited options for a 25-year-old woman looking to enhance her facial beauty. Rohaidy states, “I was being told in consults to either put filler in my smile lines or get a facelift. It was a bizarre experience. These consults were taking place in back rooms of medical offices, with patients like me mixed in with sick patients in the waiting area. I kept thinking, 'Wow, this industry is so fragmented and I can’t be the only one that feels this way. There must be other people that feel this way too. There must be something better.'”
During her search for a better option, Rohaidy found an incredible opportunity to change how physicians approached a career in this industry. “I discovered there was a tremendous amount of white space when it came to the amount of people that wanted or were curious about cosmetic treatments and their ability to receive them in comfortable environments or by physicians that looked like them and served people like them,” says Rohaidy.
An Unpopular Opinion
While re-credentialing herself as a P.A., Rohaidy started surveying the current market to determine what types of medical aesthetics practices existed and would be the best fit for her interests. The options were limited to medspas that didn’t have a specific focus on aesthetic medicine or plastic surgery practices that offered a side of Botox. It was evident the market contained large gaps in the services it provided and what kind of practices existed to provide them. Rohaidy shares, “I wanted to find that middle ground, a place that focused on minimally invasive procedures for injectables. That’s when I started considering starting my own private practice. I initially thought securing venture capitalist money was necessary.”
While the venture capitalist she met with was interested in her market research and observation of the wide gaps in the market, Rohaidy was advised to refine her ideas into a cohesive concept. She explains, “I started IMO with that feedback in mind. I had about 100 followers on Instagram at the start. I remember my first video got maybe three views, but then three views turned into 13, then 35 and so on. During this period of growth, I had to stay positive and believe in this mission. Little by little, people started revealing they were interested in the same things I was interested in.”
Rohaidy’s inspiration for her brand, “In My Opinion” or IMO, stemmed from her early experiences going to consultations that consistently suggested enhancing one area of the face without considering how these changes might affect the appearance of the whole.
“I was annoyed that everyone would just ask about forehead Botox. I was like, in my opinion we shouldn’t just be isolating the forehead. We should be treating fixable areas of the face because they all move in harmony. People start to look weird when you consistently isolate only one area. I should have called it my unpopular opinion because it was an unpopular opinion for some time. I had an unpopular opinion and I wanted to share it.”
Building a New Kind of Aesthetic Practice
Once her message began to grow, gaining traction and serious interest, Rohaidy felt it was time to start building her practice. Her very first location was a clinic she built onto her own home. “At that time, I lived in a residential and commercial state building, so I decided to build out an entire clinic off the side of my house. We outfitted it with a high quality, sterile private medical exam room, a check-in and small waiting area with brochures, as well as a separate area for photography,” she explains. “I decided, this is what I can afford. I’ll focus on being extremely transparent, film these videos from my 250 sq. ft. space and show people who I am and what I can do.”
Rohaidy’s honest and genuine approach served her well. She began taking appointments on a concierge basis and after a short while, referrals started coming in from major local entrepreneurs.
“I was spending three to four hours in these appointments and one referral turned into another and so on. Eventually people I wasn’t familiar with were trying to schedule appointments. That’s when I no longer felt comfortable taking patients out of my home office.”
At this point, Rohaidy had to open a second part-time office in a medical office building. For two years she commuted between the two spaces, which were 40 miles apart, often multiple times a day. Rohaidy recalls, “I would take patients in Brickell, then go all the way back to South Miami and see patients there. In between, I would film my little video to my personal patient audience. I think my passion came through as honest and human.”
Rohaidy’s genuine passion and care for her patients propelled the growth of her brand. “The numbers from my videos started increasing and getting engagement. People started asking questions. I became a very credible sounding board and point of access for people that were a bit scared to do treatments, but were curious," she says, adding, "I was showing a lot of my before and after photos and trying to be very transparent about every patient case that I touched. This opened up dialogue, leading to more and more referrals. I think it was also a case of being at the right place at the right time.”
Turning IMO Dreams Into Reality
When her one rented office room turned into three rooms, Rohaidy knew it was time to take her practice to the next level and establish a flagship location for IMO. She had clearly tapped into the public’s desires for a different kind of aesthetic practice.
“We had developed a bit of a cult following and it became clear we were servicing a big need for conservative results in the community. People needed someone that was a bit younger, female, a person of color and a minority to serve that segment of the community in an industry with primarily white male plastic surgeons. Those were the men in power doing facial aesthetics at the time, and the only physicians any woman interested in aesthetic treatments in Miami had as a point of reference.”
Rohaidy’s plans were slightly altered when Covid-19 hit, but what could have been a major upset turned out to be a blessing in disguise. She states, “We had just signed a potential 10-year lease with Brookfield Partners at Merrick Park for a large amount of money, thinking and hoping we would be at the point where we would be able to pay those bills and fulfill our dreams when we opened. Covid-19 turned out to be one of our biggest years. Construction was delayed by a year and a half, but we grew so much that when we opened our doors at Merrick Park, we had a very strong base.”
When Rohaidy was finally able to design her flagship IMO location, she knew she didn’t want the atmosphere to reflect the lower-end environments she was familiar with. “It had a vending machine feel that I didn’t want. I wanted this to be a place where there’s a clinical leader in the room to address patients’ problems and concerns before collaborating to find the ideal solution. I wanted more structure, as well as a more visually elevated environment with more high-end design. These procedures cost upwards of thousands of dollars, which lends itself to a more elevated environment,”
says Rohaidy.
As for the visual aspect of IMO, Rohaidy wanted to create an elegant but neutral tone that communicated the inclusiveness of her brand. She explains, “We wanted to be an inclusive brand focused on education that was, of course, visually appealing. We leaned towards a neutral pallet of creams, browns and topes to show a bit more neutrality, subtlety and conservativeness. There are little pops of color throughout just to show our more playful side, but we wanted the atmosphere to be a bit more neutral and inclusive with an elegant and conservative design.”
Educating the Next Generation
Rohaidy has unique challenges when it comes to managing her practice. Like her educational videos for the public, she is dedicated to educating the next generation of doctors entering the medical aesthetics industry. Rohaidy designed a training program for her student employees, with the entirety of her medical assistants comprised of pre-med or pre-clinical students.
“Communication is key for us and something that’s always evolving. Florida allows your medical clinical assistants to be credentialed on-site through Fellowship training program, so our medical assistants have been credentialed in-house through a 90-day fellowship program. We are actively involved in their HIPAA training, handling of biohazardous and waste materials and bloodborne contamination protocols.”
Practice management alone is rife with challenges but add in IMO’s dedication to actively educating the next generation, and those challenges multiply. Rohaidy’s excellent leadership and positive attitude toward team culture and motivating her team with her own positive energy transforms these challenges into strengths.
“Creating a good work and brand culture, where there’s integrity whether we’re patient-facing or behind closed doors, is paramount. I would describe myself as a very fair leader. I know when to be strong, when to be flexible and when to be inflexible." Rohiady continues, "If I come in with positive energy, I think the staff tend to also feel motivated to bring big, beautiful energy to their day. When they see their leadership running the business with integrity and honesty, they’re inclined to behave that way and hold up morale as well.”
The Future of IMO
As for her future plans for IMO, Rohaidy wants to focus on a more holistic style of cosmetic enhancement for her patients, explaining, “I’d like to see IMO serve as a flagship, that one stop shop that is trusted and safe for not only facial aesthetics, but body contouring, cosmetic enhancement services, etc. I’m known for delivering conservative results and assessing the entire face to achieve global facial optimizations through combination approaches." She continues, "Making tiny tweaks can amount to big change. I really want to start looking at the individual from top to bottom to see how we can optimize multiple aspects.”
This approach encompasses Rohaidy’s outlook on the direction she wants to take the industry in and her mission for the IMO brand. She states, “I would love to see more people be honest about how interested they are in these tiny little tweaks and the things they do to achieve what they perceive to be beautiful. It’s really my goal to bring transparency to all these things that we do to achieve what we perceive to be beautiful. ”
What do you like most about what you do?
“I can help people feel better about themselves. When you have that little spark of confidence, it can be a big ignitor in satisfying or overcoming those barriers to whatever you want to achieve, whether it’s that promotion, relationship or just doing it for yourself. I like being the force behind facilitating those big feelings internally in some way.”
Rebecca Lane is the managing editor of MedEsthetics.
