Speaker 1: Apoge Production.
Speaker 2: Hi. My name's beck Woodbine and welcome to Tenderness for Nurses.
Speaker 3: I'm grateful for the person that I had the opportunity
Speaker 3: to be, so.
Speaker 1: I hit it and parked it for Nelly four years.
Speaker 1: We always have free will, We always get to choose.
Speaker 1: We are autonomous.
Speaker 2: Hi everybody, thank you for tuning back in to Tenderness
Speaker 2: for Nurses Today. I have the fabulous doctor Leoni Yip,
Speaker 2: who is a dermatologist here in Brisbane. We have literally
Speaker 2: been pinpals and haven't been able to catch up for
Speaker 2: probably the last six years. I met her through another
Speaker 2: very good friend of mine, Katie, who did it a
Speaker 2: sort of like online introduction as they'd worked together down
Speaker 2: in Melbourne. So thank you for taking the time to
Speaker 2: come and have a chat.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having that.
Speaker 3: Is so lovely to meet you finally after five or
Speaker 3: six years texting social media messages and you've been virtual
Speaker 3: until right now, right now.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you moved up from Brisbane from Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Sorry how long ago?
Speaker 3: Actually we moved from with my ex husband and my children.
Speaker 3: We moved from Melbourne to Canberra for his job that
Speaker 3: didn't really work out. So we were there for five
Speaker 3: to six years, and unfortunately went through a really difficult
Speaker 3: time with how his job turned out, and we ended
Speaker 3: up in Brisbane surrendipitously because there was an offer here
Speaker 3: and I had only ever been to Brisbane once before
Speaker 3: that I knew nothing about Brisbane, and so we took
Speaker 3: the chance and it's worked out quite well. The kids
Speaker 3: love it, and this is now my home. I used
Speaker 3: to be resentful that we had left Melbourne, and I
Speaker 3: think I held onto that resentment when I was in
Speaker 3: Canberra because it took a while to set up my
Speaker 3: network of friends, patients and just to feel like I belonged.
Speaker 3: It was a lot easier to do that in Brisbane.
Speaker 3: And now you know, I still miss Melbourne. It's always
Speaker 3: my spiritual home. I'm not resentful anymore. So Brisbane is
Speaker 3: now the place for me.
Speaker 2: Did you find it easier to make connections and networks
Speaker 2: here in Brisbane or you already knew people up here.
Speaker 1: It was an interesting time because COVID happened.
Speaker 3: So we moved here in June twenty nineteen, I think,
Speaker 3: and it was re establishing myself in a new city,
Speaker 3: and by that stage I was already out for quite
Speaker 3: a few years. So I was a senior dematologist and
Speaker 3: coming to a new city where no one knew me,
Speaker 3: including GPS patients. And there were some quiet, hurtful commands
Speaker 3: being made when I was establishing myself here, like why
Speaker 3: are you so easy to get into? My dematologies has
Speaker 3: always booked up for six months? And you know, writing
Speaker 3: letters back I remember to GPS and then one called
Speaker 3: me and said she didn't like the way I was writing.
Speaker 1: My letters backter.
Speaker 3: I've been writing the letters the way I've had for
Speaker 3: the last few years and had no issues. So just
Speaker 3: teething issues in a new city, people trying to suss
Speaker 3: me out. I'm trying to suss the system out. And yeah,
Speaker 3: it took me a while to find myself. But definitely
Speaker 3: people the Cambarans are great people, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3: But it's just such a transient city that it was
Speaker 3: hard to establish networks and I felt very lonely, and
Speaker 3: having my second child, Elliott there he was born there,
Speaker 3: I was very much still resentful that we had left
Speaker 3: Melbourne because my networks were there and I felt alone.
Speaker 3: But in Brisbane, the kids were a little bit bigger,
Speaker 3: and I just felt that people were warming. It was
Speaker 3: easier to have that network. And then COVID happened, and
Speaker 3: then COVID happened, and that was how I met you texting.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes. It was also very testing.
Speaker 3: Time for us because we had purchased a house and
Speaker 3: with the move it was lack of work and financially
Speaker 3: we had a mortgage to pay, having to homeschool the children.
Speaker 1: It was all incredibly stressful.
Speaker 3: But after that happened, it was good that because in
Speaker 3: my line of work as a dematologist, I do medical
Speaker 3: dermatology and surgical dematology, so we could still do the
Speaker 3: bare minimum to help patients with excimil batsisis or skin cancers.
Speaker 3: So I had that outlet where I could go to
Speaker 3: work and see people and patients coming in who felt lonely,
Speaker 3: they were sad with the situation.
Speaker 1: And just having that contact with people really worked.
Speaker 3: It was stressful, we got through it, and I think now,
Speaker 3: few years down the track, I am happy.
Speaker 1: I won't say it's problem free. It never is.
Speaker 3: There's always challenges. I hate to use the word stress,
Speaker 3: but there's always stress that we have to navigate. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I think I'm in a good place at.
Speaker 2: The moment after COVID you set up your own practice
Speaker 2: at West End, which is a bit fabulous, and I
Speaker 2: refer a lot of my patients to you, Yeah, thanks
Speaker 2: about acne and a patire and whatever, and they all
Speaker 2: say what a great face it is and what an
Speaker 2: awesome area. You must be super proud to have done
Speaker 2: that on your own.
Speaker 3: I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved with
Speaker 3: Skin Partners, but I did not do that on my own.
Speaker 3: It always takes a village, and I think the credit
Speaker 3: really goes to the people around me. My ex husband
Speaker 3: who really supported me through, and my children the time
Speaker 3: that I have sacrificed not being with them, not being
Speaker 3: a mom, by being a doctor and essentially a practice owner,
Speaker 3: and my incredible staff. I think without them, there will
Speaker 3: be no Skin Partners. And I think that's me. I
Speaker 3: can't function on my own. I'm the kind of person
Speaker 3: who is quite vulnerable and I always need people around
Speaker 3: me to support me.
Speaker 1: So it is a great space. I'm incredibly proud of that.
Speaker 3: I had a great team of architects, interior designer and
Speaker 3: a project manager as well who found me the space,
Speaker 3: and I think a lot of it was just part
Speaker 3: of me liking to be in control, yeah, and being
Speaker 3: a perfectionist, which is not necessarily a good quality. But
Speaker 3: I had in my mind an idea of how I
Speaker 3: want my color scheme to be and the space that
Speaker 3: I wanted, which you know, my brief to the architect was,
Speaker 3: I don't want the space to look medical. I don't
Speaker 3: want it to look sterile. I want patients to open
Speaker 3: the door and immediately feel this sense of calm. So
Speaker 3: I want the color scheme to be stage almost like
Speaker 3: the Australian outdoors, and there's a recovery space for laser
Speaker 3: patients they come in, there's music, but it's also not
Speaker 3: a cosmetic spa. So I think dermatology for me should
Speaker 3: be a blend of medicine and also it's creativity and
Speaker 3: its art when it comes to the skin. So I
Speaker 3: think the vision I have for my practice has been
Speaker 3: realized by an amazing group of people. But it's certainly
Speaker 3: not just a solo effort. I can never take that
Speaker 3: credit for myself.
Speaker 2: Leading into COVID, and I mean, I am going to
Speaker 2: ask some personal questions, so tell me anything ask But
Speaker 2: what I'm interested in with the podcast is you're now
Speaker 2: a single mum had a marriage breakdown. Is how you
Speaker 2: look after yourself, how you manage running a business, having staff,
Speaker 2: having two boys and they're at that age where they're
Speaker 2: super busy, lots of sport.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming your family are still in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: My parents live in Malaysia actually, so my ex husband
Speaker 3: and I have no family in Queensland. I do have
Speaker 3: some extended family in Melbourne, thank goodness. My ex husband
Speaker 3: and I are very amicable, which is unusual I know
Speaker 3: for divorced couples. But we essentially separate it because we've
Speaker 3: become very different people and I think that's life, and
Speaker 3: we decided that it was in our best interests and
Speaker 3: for the children to remain good friends, amicable.
Speaker 1: We did not fall out. We still know.
Speaker 3: We talk to each other, We love and we benter
Speaker 3: and that's fantastic. So we support each other through the
Speaker 3: arrangements with the children. It is incredibly hard and I
Speaker 3: can't say I'm still you know, I'm still struggle with
Speaker 3: the balance of it all, and I do think I
Speaker 3: do a lot with trying to be a clinician, trying
Speaker 3: to be a mother, which is another full time job,
Speaker 3: trying to be a business woman, trying to be a friend,
Speaker 3: trying to have me time. But I think being a mom,
Speaker 3: I'm not a great full time mom. I struggle with that.
Speaker 3: I did not like breastfeeding. I struggle with the new
Speaker 3: one face because I felt out of my depth, out
Speaker 3: of control. And now with the separation, when I see
Speaker 3: the children, I feel like I'm enjoying it a lot more.
Speaker 3: I love them to bits. There's nothing I wouldn't do
Speaker 3: for them. But I think I'm a much better part
Speaker 3: time mom because I feel that I can concentrate on them.
Speaker 3: And I have this way of thinking now. And I
Speaker 3: actually read this in a Brene Brown book that I'm
Speaker 3: reading at the moment called Atlas of the Heart. So
Speaker 3: it talks about disappointment and how not to have expectations,
Speaker 3: and this is exactly what I've been doing, so I
Speaker 3: couldn't verbalize it like she did really.
Speaker 1: Well in the book.
Speaker 3: Now, when I have the kids on weekends, on the
Speaker 3: days that I have them, I'll have no expectations of
Speaker 3: doing anything for myself. It's all about them. Then I
Speaker 3: won't be disappointed, I won't be frustrated if I don't
Speaker 3: achieve anything. And that's okay. But when I don't have them.
Speaker 3: That's when I can have expectations of trying to complete
Speaker 3: a talk that I'm doing, or trying to complete a
Speaker 3: media interview, or have meetings or have mere time. So
Speaker 3: I think it's just having that in my mind about
Speaker 3: managing expectations of what I can and cannot do when
Speaker 3: I have the children. Yep, just setting boundaries for myself
Speaker 3: just so I know that thing I should get burnt out.
Speaker 3: I get burnt out, and you know I got so
Speaker 3: burnt out. I think it was two years ago, towards
Speaker 3: the end of the year. I get periods in the
Speaker 3: year when I feel incredibly burnt out, when things get
Speaker 3: really busy in the practice, and you know, life is
Speaker 3: such that we don't live in a little bold Sometimes
Speaker 3: pooh hits the fan, so you know, live.
Speaker 1: Is a Pooh show sometimes.
Speaker 3: So I think for someone like myself, whom I always
Speaker 3: strive to be a perfectionist, I think that's not a
Speaker 3: good thing. And in the last few years, I've embraced
Speaker 3: this concept of the eighty five percent rules. So the
Speaker 3: eighty five percent rule was actually developed for elite sporting
Speaker 3: professionals so that you're not needing to perform at one
Speaker 3: hundred percent capacity, so you don't burn out that you're
Speaker 3: performing at eighty five percent, so there's a bit of
Speaker 3: room for you to have some relaxation, mindset, some fuel, energy,
Speaker 3: some reserve. And I think that's really worked well for me.
Speaker 3: I don't need to give everything one hundred percent. Eighty
Speaker 3: five percent is enough, and that's giving myself permission to fail.
Speaker 3: And that's okay because if you f up, that's okay.
Speaker 3: And if I don't give myself permission for that, that
Speaker 3: is just setting too high a bar. That's unachievable. It
Speaker 3: is unachievable. And yeah, you start beating yourself up, exactly.
Speaker 3: And I used to beat myself up over little things like, oh,
Speaker 3: I've fumbled on stage, I've said that word wrong. I
Speaker 3: rehearsed this sentence a hundred times. And but you know what,
Speaker 3: that's okay because if I make a mistake, nobody else
Speaker 3: is going to judge me. If they want to, it's okay,
Speaker 3: that's fine. Or these days, I listen to lots of
Speaker 3: podcasts and Mel Robbins has got this theory called the
Speaker 3: let them theory, right, let them, it's okay. I can't
Speaker 3: control what they say about me. If they don't like me,
Speaker 3: that's okay, that is okay, that is okay.
Speaker 1: And you know, when I was.
Speaker 3: A junior consultant, I used to take things personally. We
Speaker 3: can't control feedback from people, we can't control what Google
Speaker 3: reviews are, and you know, it's hard to think about, oh,
Speaker 3: why does this person not like me when I tried
Speaker 3: my best for them, but ultimately not everyone's going to
Speaker 3: like me.
Speaker 1: And I've learned to accept that it's okay.
Speaker 2: And see their perception of sometimes, you know, when people
Speaker 2: come into a clinic, their perception of what they want
Speaker 2: and reality actually two separate things. They've done all this
Speaker 2: Google research, They've looked at Instagram, they've looked at Facebook, whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, TikTok, and that's what they think is correct.
Speaker 1: When you actually tell them the truth, they don't like
Speaker 1: hearing it.
Speaker 2: So then they come back and they might put a
Speaker 2: not so nice comment on Google and there's nothing you
Speaker 2: can do. And like my Robin says, you just got
Speaker 2: to let them because they're miserable people.
Speaker 3: Usually yeah, exactly, yeah, you know, and unfortunately there's just
Speaker 3: the way life is hard not to take things personally.
Speaker 3: But I've learned to accept that.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: I will be hurt and I will question why this
Speaker 3: has happened, and if it's something wrong I've done or
Speaker 3: something I can improve on, great, But sometimes.
Speaker 1: It's just people being people.
Speaker 3: They could be unreasonable, unrealistic expectations, or they're just one
Speaker 3: of those people who will never be happy no matter
Speaker 3: how they go, and I just have to accept it.
Speaker 3: And now I've just learned I'm just going to ignore
Speaker 3: the noise around me and just let them it's okay.
Speaker 3: It's easier said than done, though, because that's to tell myself,
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I just I've read some really hurtful
Speaker 3: things that's been said about me by excident. I was
Speaker 3: just googling myself because I was searching for an article
Speaker 3: I've written. I oh, what is this in the Reddit
Speaker 3: forum that's being said about me? They were very hurtful
Speaker 3: comments that I would not say of anyone else. But
Speaker 3: it's you know, I don't participate in forums like that
Speaker 3: because it's just not my style. So I think it's
Speaker 3: very easy to get bogged down by the noise around
Speaker 3: us because we can't control what's on the Internet and
Speaker 3: what's being said. And I think in my practice, what
Speaker 3: I've learned to do is I'm quite happy to see
Speaker 3: people who like me.
Speaker 1: And who would come back. And a lot of my
Speaker 1: work is the word of mouth.
Speaker 3: So a lot of my patients have got family friends,
Speaker 3: people that they word of mouth refer, and that's great.
Speaker 3: I do find it hard when I get people saying, oh,
Speaker 3: I've come to you because I've read a Google review
Speaker 3: about you, or I've seen your stuff on social media,
Speaker 3: And I find that a bit harder because sometimes the
Speaker 3: persona that they see and the expectations they have, as
Speaker 3: you might know, it's very different. They have a lot
Speaker 3: higher expectations, and I'm not necessarily the persona that they
Speaker 3: imagine me to be as a clinician, because.
Speaker 1: It's all virtual.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so I think you know, in clinic, I like
Speaker 3: the fact that a lot of my patients get along
Speaker 3: with me. I get along with them. If they don't
Speaker 3: like me, they don't come back, and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 3: You're better off seeing someone you like, you can get
Speaker 3: along with and have that rapport, and if you like me,
Speaker 3: you refer other people like minded who are like you,
Speaker 3: who like me, and accept the way that this professional
Speaker 3: relationship is going to work. So I think now I
Speaker 3: just have that mindset and I've just accepted, as I'm
Speaker 3: getting older too.
Speaker 1: That that's just life and it's okay.
Speaker 3: We can't satisfy everyone, and if we want to be happy,
Speaker 3: we just have to ignore the noise around us.
Speaker 1: That is so true.
Speaker 2: And you know what's interesting is I mean, I've my
Speaker 2: business has grown through word of mouth.
Speaker 1: That's perfectly smooth.
Speaker 2: What's interesting is since the TGA rulings and we've taken
Speaker 2: off all the different words, we can say, all the
Speaker 2: before and afters. I had no continue patients since end
Speaker 2: of July last year, before Christmas. Now that's a lot
Speaker 2: for one person. At the end, I was pretty cooked.
Speaker 2: By the end of the year, no one came because
Speaker 2: of social media. They all came through word of mouth.
Speaker 2: And I have to say they are much nicer clients
Speaker 2: because they've been referred by people that are already coming
Speaker 2: to the clinic, that have been attracted to me because
Speaker 2: the type of person and.
Speaker 1: Practitioner I am.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's I think social media to some
Speaker 2: degree initially was amazing.
Speaker 1: I think it is also hard double edged thought.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I use social media for advocacy and education, so
Speaker 3: I don't advertise any of my way and if you
Speaker 3: look at my social media, they are very very few
Speaker 3: before after photos because that's just not me. It's okay
Speaker 3: if someone else wants to do it, but that's just
Speaker 3: not me, because for me, it's about educating. It's about
Speaker 3: having a voice, an educated voice that people can listen
Speaker 3: to and who can lean on and go all right, Okay,
Speaker 3: she's a dermatologist.
Speaker 1: She probably knows what she's doing.
Speaker 3: And I don't necessarily need you to come and see me,
Speaker 3: but just trust that a dermatologist is someone who can
Speaker 3: help you better than someone else who's promoting some product
Speaker 3: because they're getting paid, but has no special, credible expertise
Speaker 3: or experience. So for me, yeah, social media is a
Speaker 3: way to just have a presence to educate and connect
Speaker 3: with people, but I don't use it to get work.
Speaker 1: Did you train in Melbourne or did you train in Malaysia?
Speaker 1: In Melbourne?
Speaker 3: So I did medical school in Auckland and I followed
Speaker 3: my then boyfriend to Wellington for a year and then
Speaker 3: I got a little bit bored.
Speaker 1: Oh I need to be in a bigger city.
Speaker 3: I need a little bit more challenged because I'm constantly
Speaker 3: needing to be stimulated. So I moved to Melbourne, and
Speaker 3: the first few weeks of being Melbourne, I just thought,
Speaker 3: this is going to be my home forever.
Speaker 1: And I love New Zealand. It's great.
Speaker 3: But I also found New Zealand quite insular and the
Speaker 3: more different you are, the more difficult it was for
Speaker 3: people to accept you. But when I was in Melbourne
Speaker 3: is the more different you are, the easier it is,
Speaker 3: and the more interesting you are people who accept you.
Speaker 1: And I loved that concept because I'm a big city girl.
Speaker 3: I grew up in kl And, so I love the
Speaker 3: idea of being different, being with different people, networking. I'm
Speaker 3: very social, I'm an extrod. So Melbourne was my than
Speaker 3: spiritual home and I thought that in New Zealand, I
Speaker 3: had wanted to be a physician, but then I got
Speaker 3: quite burnt out working at the hospital with on calls
Speaker 3: and night shifts.
Speaker 1: And different things.
Speaker 3: And I had a dermatologist mentor who took me on
Speaker 3: because I said, I actually quite liked the idea of dermatology,
Speaker 3: but I didn't know very much about it because in
Speaker 3: medical school you get one or two weeks of lectures
Speaker 3: and all they teach you is a little bit about
Speaker 3: exama a libit of psoriasis. That's it, and you're supposed
Speaker 3: to figure out if you liked it. And then you know,
Speaker 3: as you get older, you just think, you know, it's
Speaker 3: just a career. I need work life balance. I need
Speaker 3: something that interests me, that can sustain my stimulation. And
Speaker 3: because I'm such an extra it, I just like meeting people,
Speaker 3: talking to people. So I thought I'll get dermatology to go.
Speaker 3: So when I was in Melbourne, I also met another
Speaker 3: mentor who was Professor Rod Sinclair, who's the alopecia expert,
Speaker 3: and he said to me, I remember our first meeting.
Speaker 3: He's like, oh, I will only take you on if
Speaker 3: you do a PhD with me. And I was young,
Speaker 3: and Naima thought, yeah, sure. I didn't beat an eyelid
Speaker 3: and I didn't know what I was getting myself into.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god. So I agreed to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 3: And it was a genetic study looking at the genetic
Speaker 3: basis of fema pattern helos and all of a sudden
Speaker 3: I was broke and there was uncertainty about my future.
Speaker 3: Why am I doing this for three years not getting
Speaker 3: paid and there's no guarantee I'm going to get into dermatology,
Speaker 3: but I was determined to finish what. Every time I
Speaker 3: start something, I'm de dermined to finish it.
Speaker 1: I'm just that kind of person.
Speaker 3: The first year I called the throwaway year, where none
Speaker 3: of the experiments worked.
Speaker 1: I'm a doctor, I'm not a scientist.
Speaker 3: But I was then having to pipet things, having to
Speaker 3: sterilize things, and doing all these experiments like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: this is completely out of my depth. But I was
Speaker 3: very organized because I started writing the first chapter of
Speaker 3: my thesis in my first year, which was basically just
Speaker 3: literature reviews. Was fine to do, and then things fell together.
Speaker 3: It was there were a lot of challenges, but luckily
Speaker 3: that all panned out.
Speaker 1: The hard work paid off.
Speaker 3: I got into dermatology the last year of my PhD,
Speaker 3: and then when I started first year of dermatology training
Speaker 3: in Melbourne, I set for the first I think it
Speaker 3: was the pharmacology exams in the first year, and I
Speaker 3: submitted my PhD thesis that in the same year, got
Speaker 3: married the same year, and then just yeah, went through that.
Speaker 1: So do you think you got ADHD? Actually, you know
Speaker 1: what I think I do.
Speaker 3: I'm self diagnosed and I never these days because there's
Speaker 3: so much more awareness for ADHD.
Speaker 1: I reckon I do have ADHD.
Speaker 3: I've come to the realization in the last year or two,
Speaker 3: and I keep saying this to some of my friends.
Speaker 3: I'm constantly driven. I constantly need to find something to do.
Speaker 3: I don't like to be bored. But you do finish things.
Speaker 3: I do finish things. I always do. I always do.
Speaker 3: If I choose to start something, I will only choose
Speaker 3: to start it if I can finish something. But these days,
Speaker 3: I find life. I go to a conference, if that
Speaker 3: talk does not capture me in the first ten to
Speaker 3: twenty seconds, I just drift off.
Speaker 1: I'll just start looking at my phone.
Speaker 3: My concentration span has got shorter and shorter and shorter
Speaker 3: over the last few years, and I just find it
Speaker 3: hard to relax. Sometimes it's just what I'm working on.
Speaker 3: So I do think I've ADHD. But I don't think
Speaker 3: I'm at the stage where I need to see someone
Speaker 3: to get help or.
Speaker 1: Be medicated, because I think I'm managing okay for now.
Speaker 1: H No.
Speaker 3: I've also listened to a Brene Brown book that I
Speaker 3: read as well. You know, I mentioned how I hate
Speaker 3: being bored I can't relax, but you know, when I'm
Speaker 3: so busy these days, being bored is a privilege.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Well, they say that's when you get your best ideas.
Speaker 2: It's when you're exactly Yeah, it feels imagination. That's what
Speaker 2: I'm teaching my children.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to do a little bit of meditation, but
Speaker 3: rather than calling it meditation, because the kids now do
Speaker 3: meditation at school, so good.
Speaker 1: It's great.
Speaker 3: So when I have the children and I'll just before
Speaker 3: you know, read a book or before we go to bed,
Speaker 3: and so now we're just going to sit for five
Speaker 3: minutes and do nothing. And I think all of us
Speaker 3: should be doing that because it's just constant, go, go,
Speaker 3: go it is and it's okay to be bod give
Speaker 3: yourself a mission to be bored, because I think really
Speaker 3: it's a it's a privilege to be able to do
Speaker 3: that when we're constantly in such a challenging, demanding world.
Speaker 2: Coming into Brisbane yesterday, I was sound at a conference
Speaker 2: and I met this fabulous nurse whose African American heritage.
Speaker 1: Her name's Agnes and just fabulous and.
Speaker 2: She's going to come on the podcast to talk about,
Speaker 2: you know, women of color in nursing. Do you feel
Speaker 2: having your Asian heritage in Melbourne probably didn't make any
Speaker 2: difference because everyone is just so, you know, and just fabulous.
Speaker 2: Did it make a difference here in Brisbane?
Speaker 1: Do you think? I'm gonna say very suchly, but not
Speaker 1: that much.
Speaker 3: I felt that such a Asian racism a lot more
Speaker 3: when I was in medical school in New Zealand. We
Speaker 3: don't do these things here in New Zealand, but I
Speaker 3: know there could still be some racism in areas outside
Speaker 3: of Melbourne, but in Queensland where we may still be
Speaker 3: a little bit lagging behind, so to speak. But I
Speaker 3: haven't felt that myself because to be honest, I'm quite
Speaker 3: westernice I'm a banana.
Speaker 1: No, hang on, am I a banana? I don't know.
Speaker 2: Chat with her my friend was actually a Caucasian and
Speaker 2: he talks about him being the other.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm an attic because I am yellow on the
Speaker 3: outside and I'm wide on the inside because I'm not
Speaker 3: super Asian and a lot of my friends are not typical.
Speaker 3: I don't even want the right word to say is
Speaker 3: without offending anyone. But a lot of my friends are
Speaker 3: very westernized yeah as well, and I do have some
Speaker 3: Asian friends who are strong on the Asian heritage, and
Speaker 3: that's okay.
Speaker 1: But I think because.
Speaker 3: I am where I am in my career, and I'm
Speaker 3: fortunate to be where i am in my career, where
Speaker 3: I think I've done a lot to be at this
Speaker 3: stage in life where people sort of know me, they
Speaker 3: know what I do, they respect what I do. So
Speaker 3: I think I don't feel it as much.
Speaker 1: Done the hard yards.
Speaker 3: It's been tough, but you know, I've worked. You know,
Speaker 3: some people get lucky. I never get lucky. I always
Speaker 3: have to work very hard to get where I am,
Speaker 3: and I think I will always appreciate the hard yards
Speaker 3: that I've done because I know I've worked incredibly hard
Speaker 3: to get where I am.
Speaker 1: But again, it's not a solo effort. It's a village
Speaker 1: to do that. And do you think when you were
Speaker 1: brought up?
Speaker 2: Because Altally Vertek has been on numerous times on the
Speaker 2: potty here like she's our resident plastic surgent, and you
Speaker 2: know she has spoken about the pressure she felt.
Speaker 1: Being Asian from her family. Did you feel that.
Speaker 3: My parents, who are still in Malaysia, they come from
Speaker 3: very traditional families. They are still of a very traditional
Speaker 3: mindset now in their seventies and I can never change them.
Speaker 3: And that's okay, that's fine, But yeah, interesting because my
Speaker 3: parents have never pressured me to do medicine. Nothing. My
Speaker 3: parents never pressured me to do anything, and they were
Speaker 3: just proud of what I did. And even my paternal grandparents,
Speaker 3: who were the traditional ones who really push for son
Speaker 3: sun song in the family, that never happened. There was
Speaker 3: no pressure from them for me to excel. But because
Speaker 3: I saw all of that happening, I still remember vividly.
Speaker 3: But my maternal grandmother, who looked after my sister and
Speaker 3: I and who lived with us in the same household
Speaker 3: growing up, I remember her saying to me, this is
Speaker 3: what your other grandparents think of not having a son,
Speaker 3: and so you have to work hard and prove to
Speaker 3: them that girls can do the same thing. So I
Speaker 3: always remember that. But I think a lot of the
Speaker 3: pressure came from me to succeed. So that's why I
Speaker 3: worked really hard. But doing medicine was not my first choice.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had
Speaker 3: the grades, and I thought, oh, growing up, I was
Speaker 3: just you know, all I ever knew was that my
Speaker 3: dad was like the chief finance director of three AM,
Speaker 3: which is a multinational American company in Malaysia, and he
Speaker 3: was loyal to the company. He climbed the corporate ladder
Speaker 3: for years and before I was born, he was working
Speaker 3: with them to the day he retired, when I was
Speaker 3: already married, he was still with them. So that loyalty
Speaker 3: I learned that growing up, and also the work ethic.
Speaker 3: Work hard, and all I ever knew was I wanted
Speaker 3: to be in corporate I wanted to wear a suit
Speaker 3: to work. I wanted to business cards, I could facts,
Speaker 3: I would.
Speaker 1: Have a secretary. They went so and so this office.
Speaker 3: Just that idea of the corporate world intrigued me because
Speaker 3: it was all I knew. And my mum was in
Speaker 3: the corporate world too, So doing medicine was almost like
Speaker 3: a default because I didn't know what to do. There
Speaker 3: was no pressure to do it, but I just did
Speaker 3: it and I enjoyed it. And I'm very fortunate to
Speaker 3: still be in the career because a lot of doctors
Speaker 3: get burnt out, yeah, and they leave the profession they
Speaker 3: do something completely different. But I've been very fortunate that
Speaker 3: I found my niche in dermatology and I love what
Speaker 3: I do. There's a lot of hard work involved. It
Speaker 3: wasn't luck at all. It was just a lot of
Speaker 3: hard work.
Speaker 2: You know, I've been too different, you know, damn conferences,
Speaker 2: and I have to say, I think dermatology is up
Speaker 2: there with some of the hardest specialties. And this is
Speaker 2: what people don't realize, all the obscure skin conditions that
Speaker 2: the skin impacts, or everything impacts the skin, or vice versa.
Speaker 2: It is so complex, and yet people think it is
Speaker 2: just this really basic special and it is not.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is is a really good point because there
Speaker 3: are you know, at least a few thousand different skin
Speaker 3: conditions that we see and treat. And often I find
Speaker 3: that offensive. I suppose I shouldn't blame anyone, but you know,
Speaker 3: people come to see us and they go, oh, that
Speaker 3: dermatology has only looked at us for two seconds and
Speaker 3: didn't even touch my skin or didn't do this, and
Speaker 3: they make judgments on our clinical recommendations or diagnoses. But
Speaker 3: in reality, in dermatology, we trained so hard. We trained
Speaker 3: for at least so basically med school is six years
Speaker 3: and then you do your residency and I basically studied
Speaker 3: for thirteen or fourteen years to.
Speaker 1: Be where I am.
Speaker 3: Six years of medical school, I did three years of PhD,
Speaker 3: four years of dermatology training, another extra year of alopecia
Speaker 3: subspecialty training to get to my level. Other dorms do
Speaker 3: the same thing or different pathways. We do all of
Speaker 3: that in our specialty training. So I can look at
Speaker 3: someone even when I call them up from the waiting
Speaker 3: room they're walking towards yeah exactly, I know exactly what
Speaker 3: they have, or that talking in the consult is really
Speaker 3: just sing fluff. Yeah, I don't need all the extra information,
Speaker 3: but I'll sit down and talk to you create that rapport.
Speaker 3: But in my mind, I already know what you're here for.
Speaker 3: And as a dermatologist, we're trained in pattern recognition. There
Speaker 3: are a lot of these complex conditions common uncommon. If
Speaker 3: we look at you for a few seconds and we
Speaker 3: don't know what it is, that's when we need to
Speaker 3: do a biopsy, or that's when we really need to
Speaker 3: get additional information, or that's so we need to refer
Speaker 3: you on to other dermatologies or other specialties to get
Speaker 3: an opinion on things. So they are straightforward conditions. There
Speaker 3: are harder conditions. I'm not saying like you know we
Speaker 3: know everything because we don't. But yes, demotology is very complex,
Speaker 3: but also opens up these whole can of worms about
Speaker 3: social media and googling. And then you get people who
Speaker 3: want everything natural or they don't trust what you say,
Speaker 3: but they want to do everything without medications. That's not
Speaker 3: science based, it's pseudoscience. So there's a lot of these
Speaker 3: to contend with. And I think that's the challenge of
Speaker 3: being a doctor in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: But it's not just this year. It's been for the
Speaker 1: past few years.
Speaker 3: And I think that's going to change a little bit more,
Speaker 3: but hopefully with AI, that's going to change the way
Speaker 3: we treat things. It's going to be a companion to
Speaker 3: our specialty. It already is a companion. It should not
Speaker 3: be replacing dermatologists because you need that human factor. You
Speaker 3: need a human to have that final decision, that ultimate
Speaker 3: decision on clinical judgment and treatment. But we do need
Speaker 3: to accept that medicine has changed and we need to
Speaker 3: embrace technology. And I think for dermatology we are right
Speaker 3: visible at the front line because the skin's the biggest
Speaker 3: organ Like you say, you don't get social media influences
Speaker 3: who are cardiology social media influences or neuphrology, social media influence.
Speaker 1: They're all skin influences. And because it's so.
Speaker 3: Accessible and it's just such an industry, there's a huge
Speaker 3: market in skin care and hair care. So yeah, that's
Speaker 3: what we're it's you know, it's an interesting conversation that
Speaker 3: we could talk about, and I'm sure it's going to
Speaker 3: keep changing in the next few years. Post Covid, I
Speaker 3: was doing tele health for particularly acne roseatua. But what
Speaker 3: I was finding was everyone's skin was so inflamed. Now
Speaker 3: it was because they were listening to all these influences
Speaker 3: and buying this product and that product, and I'll give
Speaker 3: this one a bit of a whirl and I'll try this,
Speaker 3: and this didn't work, so and I had to take
Speaker 3: I can't tell how many people right back.
Speaker 1: Right back to the basics. Go get geloch, per se
Speaker 1: qv whatever.
Speaker 2: If you want to do, do nothing other than sunscreen
Speaker 2: for your skin.
Speaker 1: Nothing. Let it settle down.
Speaker 2: And I was blown away by some of the active
Speaker 2: and greed separated some of these products.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think Covid had a lot to answer
Speaker 3: for because it was when you know, the industry just
Speaker 3: went crazy. It was good in that it provided a
Speaker 3: platform for educating people about skin minimalism, you need to
Speaker 3: use less, you need to not have all these things.
Speaker 3: You know, people were looking more into active ingredients and
Speaker 3: they understood more about what active ingredients did rather than
Speaker 3: brand shopping. But it also was bad in that, like
Speaker 3: you say, they were just buying things it was exciting,
Speaker 3: or they just didn't know what to use because it.
Speaker 1: Couldn't get proper advice.
Speaker 3: It was all And that was a rise of social
Speaker 3: media influences throughout COVID. We saw that just when exponential
Speaker 3: and e commerce platforms selling chemical peeps to use at
Speaker 3: home skin care products, everything. So I think COVID had
Speaker 3: a lot to answer for. It was basically the boom
Speaker 3: of the social media industry, and social media influencing became
Speaker 3: a career.
Speaker 1: And a very well paying career. I'm ad.
Speaker 3: Yes, my prediction is in the next few years, social
Speaker 3: media influencing will be obsolete. That's my prediction because AI
Speaker 3: can generate same content a lot cheaper. Yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 3: my prediction. I may be wrong, but yeah, watch this space.
Speaker 3: Let's see.
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree with you more, I hope so because
Speaker 2: some of them I just listen to them and just go,
Speaker 2: oh my girl.
Speaker 3: I know there's some who are fantastic, who are there
Speaker 3: to educate and who would say I'm not an expert,
Speaker 3: but this is my experience. If you need help, see
Speaker 3: your dematories. But there are some who will not say that.
Speaker 3: And you know, in the last one two years, we've
Speaker 3: seen twin skincare influencing. I think it's irresponsible on the
Speaker 3: marketing side of brands and e commerce platforms who do that,
Speaker 3: where they're exploiting these young ones because they're also probably
Speaker 3: cheaper to use than adult social media influences. They can
Speaker 3: spook these products and they see these whole untapped upon
Speaker 3: market for young ones to use retinal glycolic acids and
Speaker 3: whatnot when they don't need to. And I've done so
Speaker 3: many media interviews about that. Got these young ones don't
Speaker 3: even use sunscreens. Why bother using a retinal if.
Speaker 1: You're not going to use a sunscreen?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the basics are not even there. It's just
Speaker 3: and the recent ten lines trend where they want to
Speaker 3: look like they've had a tan at the beach.
Speaker 1: I know, that's nuts. That one. What is happening. I
Speaker 1: can't believe in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: As a dermatologist, we have to bring back what happened
Speaker 3: in the nineteen eighties, nineteen sixties, seventies where people were
Speaker 3: getting sunburns and seeing all these skin cancers. But you know,
Speaker 3: skin cancers may be on the rise again in the
Speaker 3: next five to ten years because of this.
Speaker 2: I was at like I was what nineteen seventy born
Speaker 2: out in the sun, but I wasn't a huge some
Speaker 2: of it because I would burn so badly with my
Speaker 2: skin toping.
Speaker 1: I have so many skin cancers now, yeah, so many.
Speaker 2: I've had a massive big one cut off, constantly doing
Speaker 2: e fidex on my face, like it is a a
Speaker 2: problem for me coming growing up at a farm in Queensland.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, But I think, you know, unfortunately the
Speaker 3: young ones don't realize because to them, I don't have
Speaker 3: to think about skin cancers until I'm how old. I
Speaker 3: think the messaging is so important sometimes I just say
Speaker 3: to them, now, you're gonna get wrinkles when you're thirty. Oh,
Speaker 3: so you have to twist the messaging so it makes
Speaker 3: it more appealing for them. But still it is a
Speaker 3: big problem. And I don't know if public health messaging
Speaker 3: is sexy enough to combat this problem because it all
Speaker 3: comes back to social media.
Speaker 1: There's no regulation.
Speaker 3: Anyone can see anything, and all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 3: just explodes because it looks cool, because it's a trend.
Speaker 3: But remember that trends come and go. It's not here
Speaker 3: to stay.
Speaker 2: But I do worry about the tanning industry, as in
Speaker 2: fake ten, with the chemicals that have been used full
Speaker 2: body people going every week. I mean, I got on
Speaker 2: the bandwagon. That's not my whole dematology business stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: twenty years ago I set up a spray tan business.
Speaker 2: Nevere poop pooed me. That's how I made money and
Speaker 2: then sold the business. But that has been inhaled and
Speaker 2: it's full body tanning. You've got to wonder about the
Speaker 2: chemicals that are in that. If down the track, we're
Speaker 2: going to have major issues with tannuts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the education about you know, love the
Speaker 3: skin you're in. There's nothing wrong with being really fair.
Speaker 3: You're still beautiful. There's nothing wrong with the skin that
Speaker 3: you're in. Really like, why do you need to look
Speaker 3: ten to make you feel like you're beautiful? What is
Speaker 3: it so you feel like you're in the French with
Speaker 3: vieria what. I don't know what the attraction is.
Speaker 2: I think people feel, especially Aussie's, it's always been that,
Speaker 2: you know, healthy, son loving, you know, beechy sort of thing,
Speaker 2: whereas isn't funny. I look at that, you know, the
Speaker 2: red hair, the pale skin, I think, oh my god,
Speaker 2: it's divine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, It's like the Koreans and the China,
Speaker 3: they're all I know. My mom was an umbrella woman
Speaker 3: and I was very embarrassed about it growing up because.
Speaker 1: My mom just put that umbrella away.
Speaker 3: Should be like the only women Asian woman with the
Speaker 3: umbrella and the visor.
Speaker 1: And now I'm becoming like her.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm getting my pigmented flat separate keratosis, my pigmentation.
Speaker 1: I don't want pigmentation.
Speaker 3: I think Asians are so much better at sun protection
Speaker 3: than some fairer skin Caucasians are because everyone's so paranoid
Speaker 3: about pigmentation. Absolutely, everyone wants white skin because you know,
Speaker 3: it's glorified. But yeah, in Australia maybe because it's such
Speaker 3: a lifestyle thing. It's seen as healthy when you've got
Speaker 3: bronze skin. Healthy healthier skin is when you're attend but
Speaker 3: it's actually not. Sun protection really should be the Australian lifestyle. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: you know, it should be embraced as that, but I
Speaker 3: think there's also not enough awareness. And when I first
Speaker 3: came to Brisbane, I was shocked that my kids go
Speaker 3: to a very central school in an area where the
Speaker 3: parents are educated to a bit more affluent, but the
Speaker 3: school had no sun Smart policy.
Speaker 1: I was going to get my kids out of the.
Speaker 3: School, but then I thought I'll work with the principal
Speaker 3: and the school to get them into the sun Smart policy.
Speaker 3: I guess I do a lot of media. We got
Speaker 3: Channel nine years coverage and I got our dermatology college
Speaker 3: involved in media releases, the Cancer Council and different things.
Speaker 1: But I was shocked that it was nothing.
Speaker 3: And the uptake of the sun Smart policy in Queensland
Speaker 3: schools is apparently really low. And because it's not compulsory,
Speaker 3: so I thought it capulsary, it's it's very much dependent
Speaker 3: on who runs the school and what motivation they have
Speaker 3: to adopt the policy is not compulsory. Yeah, so that
Speaker 3: was shocking to me. And having lived in Melbourne and
Speaker 3: Canberra and no people in Sydney, Melbourne and canber.
Speaker 1: People are great. You don't have to remind them.
Speaker 3: The parents are slip slopping sunscreens, hats kids have, you know,
Speaker 3: you see them doing that on the on the weekends.
Speaker 3: But here, I can walk in Paddington in central Brisbane
Speaker 3: on a weekend at midday and see parents having babies
Speaker 3: on the harness. Babies have no hats to kIPS up squinting.
Speaker 3: The grandparents have no hats and it breaks my heart.
Speaker 1: In a pram and they've got a little pants or
Speaker 1: something over there.
Speaker 3: Exactly, there's only so much you can do. And I
Speaker 3: know you are drives with the city. It see redheads
Speaker 3: people going up for lunch squinting, no sunglasses, no hats, nothing,
Speaker 3: and I bet they've got no sunscreen.
Speaker 1: So it's a huge problem.
Speaker 3: And I don't know what we can do about it
Speaker 3: because there's only so much. We're all adults, we're all
Speaker 3: grown ups. There needs to be some sense of responsibility
Speaker 3: that everyone needs to take for themselves because there's only
Speaker 3: so much public health messaging and so much we can do.
Speaker 3: I get patients to come to me and there's sunburned.
Speaker 3: I go, okay, you're here for a skin shirt and
Speaker 3: your sunburned, And then they say to me, but that's
Speaker 3: why we come to see that's what you're here for
Speaker 3: to tell me I have no skin cancers.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2: Is the awareness is just not quite there because we
Speaker 2: say to people when we're treating for pigmentation or laces
Speaker 2: or whatever, there's no point in treating.
Speaker 1: And if they're not saying exactly what is the because
Speaker 1: it's waste of money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's almost like there's this sense of denial and
Speaker 3: a lot of people then because a lot of skincnsers
Speaker 3: don't kill you, therefore I'll be okay. And now this
Speaker 3: whole thing about you know, great, they're melanoma treatments that
Speaker 3: prolonged survival. You can cure melanomas. We don't have to
Speaker 3: worry anymore. But actually no, because these melanoma treatments can
Speaker 3: make you feel very very sick, very unwell, very unwell,
Speaker 3: and there's no quality of life for some of my patients.
Speaker 3: And you need to keep having these six monthly, twelve
Speaker 3: monthly pet scans and different things. No, you don't just
Speaker 3: take a drug and your life goes back to normal.
Speaker 3: So whilst we have revolutionalized the treatments for melanoma and
Speaker 3: it's life changing. But there's also this misconception that is
Speaker 3: fooling people to think I'll be okay if I get
Speaker 3: sunbones for getting melanoma, because I've got this there, Yeah,
Speaker 3: life changing treatment without realizing hang on a sack. No,
Speaker 3: it's not just taking antibiotics for a week and you
Speaker 3: be your kay. They don't understand the implications of these
Speaker 3: medicines either.
Speaker 2: Really good friend of ours just by chance found out
Speaker 2: he had a spot on his lung post melanoma being
Speaker 2: removed from his arm. It was an X ray having
Speaker 2: something else done and they just happened to catch the
Speaker 2: bottom of the lung and they saw the tiny little
Speaker 2: mark on it. He's done immunotherapy. He describes himself as
Speaker 2: feeling like the tin man without the needing the oil,
Speaker 2: because that's the impact. It saved his life and it's
Speaker 2: fabulous and he' he would be dead by now if
Speaker 2: it hadn't have been picked up. But his joints, he
Speaker 2: feels like an old It feels like the tin man
Speaker 2: without the oil. Yeah, And I thought, wow, it was
Speaker 2: such a great description of how he's Straight away I
Speaker 2: could see exactly how he's feeling.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's how a lot of my melanoma patients who
Speaker 3: have gone through immiotherapy, melanoma's gone for a long time.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what they describe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, terrible, and that neuropathy and terrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Wells you know it's all great stuff, but
Speaker 1: you pay your price for it too. I couldn't agree
Speaker 1: with you more.
Speaker 2: And I just think probably if there's any takeaway from today,
Speaker 2: where your sunscreen.
Speaker 3: Yes, where your sunscreen, because you're gonna look ten years
Speaker 3: older than you are.
Speaker 2: Don't listen to all the influences because really don't know
Speaker 2: shit about all the skin care products. Get good advice,
Speaker 2: don't get sunburned. Be kind to yourself. Eighty five percent
Speaker 2: is okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you don't have to be one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: You don't have to be a perfectionist. And it's okay
Speaker 3: to be bored. Give yourself permission to be bored.
Speaker 2: And the people you're writing awful things about online is
Speaker 2: a real person at the end of that, and maybe
Speaker 2: show a bit of kindness. If you're writing awful things
Speaker 2: on Facebook and being an online cowboy, it's doesn't help anyone,
Speaker 2: and I'm probably better. It doesn't make you feel great either.
Speaker 2: Absolutely and I, for one, don't. I don't write bad
Speaker 2: review anyone.
Speaker 3: I just communicate with the business directly and say I
Speaker 3: think this is what you could improve on because I
Speaker 3: know how it impacts people, and obvious you've got to
Speaker 3: be kind.
Speaker 1: I actually got to be kind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's in this society where there's so
Speaker 3: much challenges stress. Nobody needs anything else to push them
Speaker 3: to the edge, and we know it does. Yes, So
Speaker 3: if we don't look after ourselves, if we let others
Speaker 3: know that we're not putting ourselves first, no one else
Speaker 3: is going to put you first. And that's the fact
Speaker 3: that absolutely, yeah, I need to come first.
Speaker 2: Yes, you do. And you've done so much work and
Speaker 2: help so many people. Now sometimes you look after yourself.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: So watch me.
Speaker 3: Hopefully in the next year or two, I can find
Speaker 3: that balance a little bit more. Is not perfect yet.
Speaker 3: I don't think I have a you know, find that
Speaker 3: perfect balance. But I think little wins. I'll take little wins.
Speaker 2: And I think if we acknowledge it and work towards it,
Speaker 2: we're getting somewhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, we'll all help each other. It's a village
Speaker 3: on our own.
Speaker 1: No, absolutely not, Thank you so much. For coming in.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me impression unscripted, very candid, Love it.
Speaker 1: Thanks Leona, Thanks Bag