Dr. Taub’s Winter 2014 Letter
Dear patients, friends and colleagues,
Welcome to the New Year! 2014 should prove to be a really exciting year. I had an intellectually stimulating trip to Bangkok to participate as a presenter and a session moderator at the second annual DASIL meeting (Dermatologic and Aesthetic Surgery International League). I gave a record 7 talks and exchanged so many ideas with colleagues from India, China, Thailand, Colombia, Greece, Europe, Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and more. English is the international medical language, so every presentation was in English!
Thailand is also a fascinating country with people who truly wish to please their visitors and are incredibly friendly. Bangkok is a huge modern city with 12 million people, so much bigger than Chicago, and is on a river where much of their traffic takes place. The streets of Thailand are incredibly clogged with traffic so the boat routes are much quicker.
We visited many beautiful Buddhist temples with very ornate decorations. Our friends played with elephants in the water (sorry, too little time!), and we enjoyed the flavorful fresh Thai cuisine. I snagged a couple of days for R and R in Phuket, a well known island, that was beyond beautiful.
Back to Lincolnshire and Glencoe, we have, as always, some innovations to report! Ultherapy has arrived. For those of you who don’t know about this, it is an ultrasound based therapy to tighten the neck, jawline and brow. There are no visible marks or downtime afterward and it is a one time procedure! The results have been very consistent in all the studies that have been done, and the results can be truly remarkable. There currently is not anything else that outperforms this for a sagging neck, or too-full neck, jowls and lifting that is non-surgical. This is a true advance in our field.
We had our first full quarter in Glencoe and are doing well there. People often ask me “How is Glencoe going?”. It is great. Glencoe has welcomed us with open arms and everyone who has visited loves the beautiful art work, and the calm atmosphere. If you haven’t visited us there yet, please stop by. It is wonderful having skinfo® on the same level. Glencoe is a beautiful town with unique stores (no big box stores!!!) and a very homey feel. The downtown is always bustling with people.
We are introducing a new filler called Juvéderm® Voluma™ XC. It has been approved for treatment of the cheeks. Why the cheeks you may ask? I have come to realize that the cheeks are really the anchor of the face. The folds by the nose and mouth are formed mainly from the sagging of the cheek. We lose bone and fat as we age and the skin thins as well, so this leads to the cheek falling. When we reshape the cheek it lifts the face and reduces the jowls and the folds. It also creates the “pretty” or “handsome” factor that we all would like to regain! Besides looking and feeling very natural, Juvéderm® Voluma™ XC lasts for UP TO 2 YEARS!!! Many people get concerned that putting filler in the cheeks will make them look puffy or round. I can tell you that by re-orienting the cheek in the proper direction, it usually makes the face look THINNER! How can this be? The reason is that the shape of the face gets more of a heart shape (for women) and is less flat, this leads the eye to think it is more slender. See the before and after pictures for yourself!
One last thing, every year Northwestern Health Care Corporation makes a site visit to evaluate our physical office(s) and our charting. We are proud to say that we achieved site review scores of 100% at Glencoe and 97.9% in Lincolnshire and our record review score was 97.4% vs 95.7% for dermatology offices as a whole and 96.2% of all specialists as a whole.
Look forward to seeing you, don’t forget about Skin For Life this year on May 22. Mark your calendars.
Best wishes for a great winter,
Amy Forman Taub, MD
And the Staff of Advanced Dermatology and skinfo® Specialty Skincare Boutique