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DR. LAUREN PENZI
DERMATOLOGIST
Dr. Lauren Penzi is a Board Certified Dermatologist in New York City. Nobody in her family has a career in medicine, so since a young age she has always been curious about the field and respected medical careers. She is successful as a dermatologist because she enjoys combining her intelligence with helping her patients.
THE MUG 10
TEN QUESTIONS THAT UNLOCK REAL STORIES OF SUCCESS.
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AT A GLANCE
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I am able to make my patients feel comfortable and well cared for while using my analytical brain to give them the best dermatologic care possible.
I am able to make my patients feel comfortable and well cared for while using my analytical brain to give them the best dermatologic care possible.
WHAT IS YOUR
UNIQUE GENIUS?
how did you become interested in this career?
I SAW MY SISTER'S LIFE CHANGED BY A DERMATOLOGIST.
I have one sister and I'm incredibly close with her. She did, truthfully, have very severe cystic acne. I can remember her coming home from school crying about it—it really impacted her life. We were always at the dermatologist for her. They ultimately put her on a medication called Isotretinoin, which is what you might know as Accutane. I was very impressed with the fact that they made such a dramatic difference in just one person's life. That struck my interest.
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IN WHAT WAYS IS THIS JOB
A PERFECT FIT FOR YOU?
I'm analytical
I'm good with people
I enjoy helping people
I love solving problems
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I've always been very naturally good at the sciences. I was also always a visual learner, and for dermatology specifically, that's very important because you have to see to diagnose, treat and assess.
WHAT SKILLS DOES IT TAKE TO BE SUCCESSFUL AT YOUR JOB?
MATH, SCIENCE, COMMUNICATION, DEDICATION TO LEARNING
I was the child that was very, very smart at math and science. I'm not saying you have to only be good at math and science to be a doctor, but certainly it can't hurt. Certainly communication skills are key as a doctor and a dermatologist. Not everybody's born with those things. But I do think over time you can kind of hone in on those skills and learn how to improve upon them and maximize them so they make you better at your job. Being a physician, you have to be dedicated. You have to be dedicated to your training. It's a long road and you have to complete a lot of steps to get here. You have to be dedicated to your patients. That's for probably first and foremost, their health and their well-being is yours, your whole purpose for working and for having this job.
I am able to make my patients feel comfortable and well cared for while using my analytical brain to give them the best dermatologic care possible.
WHAT DO YOU WISH YOU KNEW WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER?
MEDICINE IS A BIG COMMITMENT.
I wish I knew just how much time it was going to take to become a doctor. People always warn you that it's a long road and a lot of commitment, but when you really get to it, it takes up a lot of your your life. Most of my twenties were spent dedicated to studying medicine and definitely looked different than my friends.
I am able to make my patients feel comfortable and well cared for while using my analytical brain to give them the best dermatologic care possible.
IN YOUR BODY OF WORK, WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?
TRAINING AT JOHNS HOPKINS
I'm really proud of training at Johns Hopkins. You could do your residency anywhere and everywhere is great, but I had a really fantastic training at Hopkins. It's definitely a powerhouse institution and I had, you know, just world class faculty there. And it's something I always kind of am proud of and hold near and dear to my heart, because it was a really great experience.
WHAT'S THE MOST CHALLENGING PART OF YOUR JOB?
TIME MANAGEMENT.
I think what is most challenging is the pace of the patients. I only get 10 minutes to see each patient and I think it's challenging to sometimes get everything in in those 10 minutes. So certainly there could be backups during the day and patients can be a little bit upset and it's hard to kind of stay on track and keep everybody satisfied. But I always do my absolute best to sort of try to keep that out of my head. When I'm with the patient, I always try to be really in the zone with them, listen to them, give them the time they deserve. That's probably the most challenging thing on a day to day basis.
WHAT'S 1 THING PEOPLE DON'T KNOW OR UNDERSTAND ABOUT YOUR JOB?
IT TAKES A BIG COMMITMENT
I feel like people in this day and age kind of automatically think of Botox and fillers, which is the is the big thing. It's on social media now. And that's certainly one aspect of what we do. But dermatology is actually a really cerebral field as well. We actually study over 4000 diseases of not just your skin, but also your hair and nails, too, that you learn during your residency training. It's also a very serious field because of melanoma in particular. Melanoma is one of the deadliest skin cancers, and if you don't catch it early, it certainly could be life-threatening for people. Melanoma detection is probably the number one most serious thing I do and the most common thing I do on a day to day basis."
WHAT WAS A DEFINING MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE?
FACING SELF-DOUBT
I can remember being in college and everybody was saying medical school is so hard to get into. I started to listen and have self-doubts to the point where I switched my major to mathematical sciences. The first semester of math classes started and I thought, 'oh my gosh, this is terrible.' I went straight to the admissions office, and from that day on, I've always been pretty eagle eyed— I'm going to be a dermatologist and not let anybody talk me out of it anymore.
INDUSTRY STATISTICS
DERMATOLOGIST
PROJECTED GROWTH
Projected Growth: 2%-3%
Projected Openings: 300
AVERAGE ANNUAL SALARY RANGE
$113,821 - $425,469
TOP SKILLS FOR THIS JOB
Active Listening
Critical Thinking
Judgement and Decision Making
Monitoring
Social Perceptiveness
WORK ENVIRONMENT
Self-Guided
Face-to-face interactions
Dependability
Stress Tolerance
TRAINING + DEGREE REQUIREMENTS
Doctoral Degree Required + Licensing