Dr Sam Assassa of the American Association of Aesthetic Medicine and Surgery (AAAMS): Five Things You Need To Know To Succeed In The Modern Beauty Industry

An Interview With Jilea Hemmings

Create Gender-neutral beauty products

Cater for People of color

Create Teens, tweens, and children products . It’s an untapped market.

Beauty should combine the lab and farm. Holistic approach: from food to beauty products, to plant-based ingredients.

“Clean beauty” is not just about what’s in consumers’ products, but also how products are produced and packaged. Developing plastic recycling technologies, and also use paper-based cosmetic packaging

As a part of our series about “Five Things You Need To Know To Succeed In The Modern Beauty Industry”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Sam Assassa.

Dr. Sam Assassa is a world-renowned non-invasive and aesthetic cosmetic surgery specialist. In 1995, he founded Beverly Hills Aesthetics, a cosmetic surgery center providing clients with non-invasive surgical and laser services in the comfort of his state-of-the-art facility. Dr. Assassa has extensive experience in minimally invasive medical and surgical aesthetics, has performed over 25,000 aesthetic procedures, and has lectured in over 15 countries in 3 continents to over 5,000 delegates. He is an avid contributor to the global advancement of innovative liposuction techniques and medical aesthetic procedures.

Dr. Assassa received his medical degree with honors, and completed his internship at Loyola University-affiliated hospitals in Chicago and his residency at Case Western University-affiliated hospitals in Cleveland. He is a board certified specialist in Internal Medicine and regarded as one of the top experts in the field of minimally invasive aesthetic surgery. He routinely travels nationally and internationally to lecture and teach his techniques to other physicians and nurses.

Dr. Assassa is a certified educator for International Academy of Aesthetics, an associate member of the American College of Physicians, an affiliate member of American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, member of American Society of Liposuction Surgery, a member of the American Mesotherapy Association, American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine as well as serves on the advisory committee of the American Aesthetic Medicine Association. He is also a member of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery and the American Academy of Aesthetic Medicine.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

By training, I’m a board certified internist. In1986, I established a successful internist practice in Huntington Beach, California. In the final three years of my career as an internist, the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) penetrated the health insurance industry and non-medical individuals started interfering with my medical decisions which made me feel that my principles and decision making seriously compromised my ability to care for patients in accordance with my medical acumen and approach to medicine. . In 1995, I took a risk and made a career transition.. I sold my practice and started a fellowship training at a prominent dermatologist office in Beverly Hills. This experience opened my eyes to the medical aesthetic field — where I fell in love with my new venture.. After several months of training and identifying where I could contribute to this field, I discovered that there was an increased demand for minimally invasive non-surgical cosmetic procedures. It was then I realized that my passion and market demand could be combined and I opened theto Beverly Hills Aesthetics in Beverly Hills, California. My goal was to make it the elite center for nonsurgical specialists and best-in-class for our industry. The challenge for me was finding the best training for minimally invasive cosmetic procedures and the reason I couldn’t find it was because what I was looking for didn’t exist.

In 2006, I launched the American Association of Aesthetic Medicine and Surgery (AAAMS), a fully accredited association based in Beverly Hills, California, dedicated to raising the overall level of knowledge, skills and standards in the field of aesthetic medicine and cosmetic surgery worldwide. Our training programs were conducted live for the first few years. As AAAMS started to gain global market share, our ability to offer more sparked a new idea for growth — online learning for aesthetic medicine. A We could provide the same comprehensive learning environment, with online learning and supervised hands-on training by highly qualified renowned educators to drive global learning outcomes. In 2014 we launched our first hybrid training courses which have become a resounding success.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

As COVID-19 has impacted many industries, it has definitely hit aesthetic medicine. We don’t know how long social distancing, quarantines and reduced social interactions will be part of our lives, so we expedited the delivery of fully virtual educational training courses.

In May this year, we launched our first virtual hands-on training course, and had medical professionals from all over the world participate. It’s great to find validation with a new offering and also meet new market demands quickly — something we continue to excel at.

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success?

Our tipping point came after about two years of offering quality comprehensive training courses in aesthetic injectable and minimally invasive cosmetic surgery, the word of mouth more than any other marketing tools helped us grow at a much faster pace.

Did you start doing anything different?

Over the years many teaching organizations focused on mass training and cookie cutter teaching method to maximize their profit. From the beginning, AAAMS philosophy was different . We focused on limiting our training courses to smaller groups “quality not quantity”, focusing on teaching the concepts of why we do things and how to do it based on a thorough knowledge of anatomy, understanding the aging process, proper facial aesthetic analysis to identify the cause of the aesthetic imperfections and applying a new method called the “ The R’s of facial Rejuvenation” which is a global approach of treating the symptoms of aging face.

Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

Yes, as in all fields of medicine, as an aesthetic a practitioner you should have a solid training foundation to help you become an excellent clinician “Dr House”. As they say: ”Garbage in Garbage out” which means, incorrect or poor quality clinical assessment will always lead to a faulty output “botched or disharmonious” results.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are?

I’m so grateful to Professor Maurizio Ceccerelli, M.D. a researcher and Director of Aesthetic Bio-regeneration Medicine Training Program in Rome, Italy. He has been my mentor since I started in the aesthetic field. His teaching method is superb, simplified and always backed by science. And most important is his passion to teach and share new ideas and techniques with the whole world.

Can you share a story about that?

Of course. In 2007 AAAMS invited Professor Ceccerelli’s to Beverly Hills to introduce a breakthrough facial rejuvenation therapy called PRP “platelets Rich Plasma PRP is a therapy that uses injections of a concentration of your own blood platelets that’s rich in growth factors to accelerate the healing and stimulation of collagen production. His method was very simple, does not require sophisticated equipment more than drawing blood, centrifuge the sample to concentrate the platelets growth factors, then inject them into the skin. I was the first aesthetic practitioner in Beverly Hills to implement this revolutionary therapy to rejuvenate the face. Shortly after the Medical Board of California forced me to stop offering this revolutionary treatment claiming that I am using stem cell therapy ( which is not) and that the FDA restrict the use of stem cells except in clinical trials?? After less than a year, Dr. Runels, an entrepreneur Doctor, launched the same PRP procedure, which he called “vampire Facelift” that went viral.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. The global beauty industry today has grown to more than a half a trillion dollar business. Can you tell us about the innovations that you are bringing to the industry? How do you think that will help people?

I believe the future of facial rejuvenation and delaying the aging process is going to be in the field of Aesthetic Regenerative Medicine. Using autologous (your own tissue) to “regenerate” human tissue to restore youth. Currently I’m working on a procedure called JUVELIFT™. Juvelift™ is a breakthrough in anti-aging treatment. It rejuvenates and regenerates all layers of face, from skin to bone affected by the aging process. It consists of three components which are called the “Triad of Regeneration”. The first two components are taken from your own body, by extracting a small amount of fat, and a blood sample that holds Growth factors. The Third component is an “Anti-Aging Network”, a blend of essential amino acids, anti-oxidant, minerals and multivitamins. The process is non-surgical and takes a couple hours from start to finish.. You will observe immediate improvement of facial contour and skin textures. Final results will be apparent in two to three months and they last approximately one to two years.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the modern beauty industry?

• Creating beauty products along with health and wellness products all together in one.
• Catering to millennials who want natural skin care products
• Creating spa experiences at home.

Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to improve the industry, what would you suggest?

• Beauty is about keeping it simple and natural
• Beauty is about harmony
• Less is more “ overdoing it” distort beauty

You are an expert about beauty. Can you share a few ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”?

As they say, ``’’Beauty is the eye of the beholder”. You have to feel beautiful inside and out.

• Show Confidence Inside and Out.
• Focus on What You Do Have, Not on What You Don’t have.
• Flexibility is a key so Reinvent Your Look
• Replace Anti-Aging with Healthy Aging

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, Can you please share “Five Things You Need To Know To Succeed In The Modern Beauty Industry”.

• Create Gender-neutral beauty products
• Cater for People of color
• Create Teens, tweens, and children products . It’s an untapped market.
• Beauty should combine the lab and farm. Holistic approach: from food to beauty products, to plant-based ingredients.
• “Clean beauty” is not just about what’s in consumers’ products, but also how products are produced and packaged. Developing plastic recycling technologies, and also use paper-based cosmetic packaging

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Evidence based skin analysis: incorporating skin analysis technologies for personalized skincare recommendations.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”?

“The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.”

— Zig Ziglar

Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I Followed this conduct code in my personal and professional life. It never failed me.

How can our readers follow you online?

Instagram , Facebook, etc…( need marketing zen help)

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

About the Interviewer: Jilea Hemmings is a staunch believer in the power of entrepreneurship. A successful career revamping Fortune 500 companies was not enough for her entrepreneurial spirit, so Jilea began focusing her passion in startups. She has successfully built 6 startups to date. Her passion for entrepreneurship continues to flourish with the development of Stretchy Hair Care, focusing on relieving the pain associated with detangling and styling natural black hair. For far too long, people with tender heads have suffered in pain. Until now.