Dr. Gold, one of the founders of SCALE and a lead faculty of the Nashville conference this spring (SCALE 2019 Music City), is the first of the doctors that we are featuring in our Meet the Doctor Series to help you get ready for the conference kick off. These doctors are the face of the event and the talent behind your CMEs. We asked the same 13 questions of our faculty and found out some pretty interesting things.

So without further ado, let us introduce to you the one and only, Dr. Michael Gold. He is the founder of Gold Skincare, a board-certified dermatologist, cosmetic surgeon and respectable educator with a highly impressive CV.

Dr. Gold, please list your Name, education, credentials and specialty.

My name is Michael Gold, MD. I am a dermatologist from Nashville, TN (home to SCALE Music City). I have been in clinical practice for 30 years and have been involved in the cosmetic aspects of aesthetic medicine for many years, performing FDA clinical research on many of the technologies that we use regularly in aesthetics. These include the botulinum toxins, most of the dermal fillers that are used on a daily basis, and many of the lasers and energy based devices that help rejuvenate and treat the skin.

I have also been involved in the meeting space – having helped create SCALE, which is now in its 14th year, as well as the 5 CC Conference which is held annually in Europe and Asia (now in 11th year) and The Dermatologic & Aesthetic Medicine International League (DASIL), which is now in its 8th year.

We know that this is not your first SCALE conference? But how many years have you attended as a speaker? And have you ever been a participant?

See above – I helped start SCALE – and have been working to help grow and expand it since its inception. We started our first meeting with 50 people and now we are close to 1000 people, and have over 125 vendors at the meeting – making us one of the top meetings for medical and aesthetic dermatology in the U.S.

What motivated you to go into your field?

I had really bad acne as a child and when I met Dr. Albert Kligman, the man who invented Retin A, and he became my dermatologist, it really peaked my interest in derm. I also came to realize that derm involved medical derm and the world of cosmetic medicine – new at the time I started but with an amazing potential. When I was in training at Northwestern University, my mentor, Dr. Henry Roenigk, encouraged me to pursue not only the medical aspects, but the cosmetic aspects as well. For 30 years I have been studying, researching, publishing, and speaking on cosmetic derm all over the world.

What is your favorite thing about your work?

I love what I do – derm is a great specialty as we take care of people with medical needs but also have the opportunity to care for their aesthetic needs – this is special. Also, I am so very fortunate that I have the opportunity to teach and travel all over the world to share with our colleagues what we do and what we have to offer – and we are continuing that with SCALE here in Nashville.

Is there a particularly compelling success story that you can share with us?

I have been fortunate to have helped bring several technologies to the derm community over the years – those are my success stories. I was the first derm to publish on the use of silicone gel for scars – now almost 30 years ago, it’s still something that is used on a daily basis all over the world. I helped bring the concept of IPL, or intense pulsed light, to the group – and had the first IPL in the world dedicated to remove hair. This technology is now 25 years old and has matured and grown to be one of the most sought after cosmetic treatments. Photorejuvenation with IPLs are done each and every day and it is humbling that I was there at the beginning. And I also helped bring PDT, or Photodynamic Therapy – used to treat pre-skin cancers called Actinic Keratoses, and acne – to derm – this has helped many, many patients. So it has been an exciting and humbling experience over the years.

What do you want the general public to know about what you do?

I hope that after 30 years, people know that we are here to take care of their medical and aesthetic skin care concerns. We work hard to gain our patients’ trust and do our best to bring to them the best treatments we can, the most novel treatments in the field, and we care for them in the best ways we know. We also want them to know that we do teach around the world and in doing so, give back to the specialty we love this much.

How do you relax, what are your hobbies?

I never relax – at least not much. I love to travel with my wife and family – and again, with what I do, I am fortunate to have been more places and to more countries than I could ever have imagined. And I love to play golf – and do so as much as I can, wherever I am.

Looking back over the course of your career, what advice do you wish someone would have given you?

The advice I wish I had earlier in my life would be to have learned more about business and other non-medical studies. The study of medicine is life-long and there are other things out there that I find interesting and exciting and would like to learn more about, maybe in the future.

Is there a particular case you wish would walk through your door

Every case that walks through our door is unique and different – it is using your skills and knowledge to realize what is wrong and how best to care for your patients – do no harm is key to what we do.

As a doctor we know people are always asking your advice; what is the most bizarre question you ever received? What was your advice?

I am asked bizarre questions all the time – and with my travel, I have been asked to do consults on air planes with flight attendants on a regular basis once they learn I am a derm. Once, I had a flight attendant with psoriasis ask me about all the new psoriasis medications – after an hour discussion, I had a new patient and she still sees me today.

When people come to the SCALE workshop or talk you are giving, what do you hope they take away from their time with you?

I hope they realize that I am genuine – that I care that they learn from me – that I give my best and that I do my homework to make sure that all of my talks are up-to-date, relevant, and meaningful for their practice of derm or aesthetics.

Looking into the future of your practice, what do you predict will be the trends and technology that emerge in the next 5 to 10 years? What are you and your practice doing to get ready for those.

In our world, we continue to work on ways to improve on what we have – lasers and devices to make fat go away faster and better are coming, new devices for making tattoos and other pigmented lesions are better now and will improve. We will see longer lasting toxins and newer combination fillers coming to the market – we are doing some of that work now in our research center – and that will show in 2-3 years or so.

Is there anything else you want people to know about you or your practice?

We work hard to make the entire experience positive and special – we are here to serve our patients in the best way we can. Our tagline is Beautiful Skin is our Business.

Thank you Dr. Gold for everything you do! We cannot wait to meet up at the conference in May in Nashville, TN!