DR JEANINE DOWNIE SKIN
DR JEANINE DOWNIE FULL

'A lot of people don't understand that insurance can make or break you,' she says. At the same time, she says, it's important to talk to physicians in your field to learn the pitfalls of various insurance companies and which plans are worth accepting. To keep a stream of patients coming through the door, Downie emphasizes the value of joining hospital associations and self-advocating within those groups to earn referrals from local doctors. Steady income from pre-existing clientele qualified her for a bank loan, which helped cover the roughly $100,000 it took in staffing and supplies to get her business off the ground.ĭownie employes one full-time and one part-time physician assistant.

DR JEANINE DOWNIE FULL

When it was time to move to her own office, she had a full roster of patients who came along with her. With savings and some credit, she then self-funded her own practice, keeping startup costs low by renting space from a neurologist. In her first two years as a doctor, Downie socked away money working for another dermatologist. 'I push myself very hard and stay up very late, always trying to make sure I arrive at whatever my perception of the next level should be.' 'Some days are better than others, and it's a lot of work, but it's so worth it,' she says. In her practice, she employs just one full-time and one part-time physician assistant. 'One of the reasons we became physicians and dentists is because we wanted some level of autonomy,' says Downie. Jeanine Downie, founder, Image Dermatology, P.C. 'I want up-and-coming doctors to know that they can still go out on their own or partner with one or two like-minded doctors and don't need to join a giant health care conglomerate,' she says.Īlways talk to colleagues and see what they're doing and if they're happy. Children live what they learn and they learn what they live,' says Downie, now mother to a 13-year-old daughter.ĭownie herself hopes to be a role model for young doctors who might be overwhelmed by student loan debt and medical regulations but still want to have a small private practice. 'I was definitely influenced by seeing them both run their own practices. As a model for self-fulfilling prophecy, she looks to her mother, who Downie says was the first African-American woman to graduate from Seton Hall University's College of Medicine and Dentistry.ĭownie was encouraged to study medicine by her mother, a pediatrician, and her grandfather, a dentist. 'Because of his high hopes for me, I went to school and told my teachers that I was smart in science and math and wanted to be a doctor,' she says.

Her mother is a pediatrician, and her grandfather, a prominent dentist in mid-20th century Harlem, encouraged Downie's future in medicine from the time she was four.

DR JEANINE DOWNIE SKIN

If personal experience with challenging skin created one pillar of Downie's entrepreneurial drive, family history-or 'the science gene,' as her family calls it-forms the other. They don't believe that I've been there, too,' she says. 'Sometimes my patients say they won't leave the house because of a pimple. Twelve miles from New York City in the New Jersey suburb of Montclair, practicing out of a 6,000-square-foot Victorian-era mansion she bought in 2003, Downie dispenses compassion along with cosmetic dermatology and noninvasive fat melting treatments, among other services. helps people of all ages beset by problem skin. Now the board-certified physician and founder of Image Dermatology, P.C. People would ask, 'Are you related to them?'' 'They were both insanely good-looking,' she says, 'and then there was this pimply, slightly chubby kid. To make matters worse, she had two fashion models for brothers. Jeanine Downie was a teenager in 1970s New Jersey, she suffered from eczema and acne bad enough to warrant insults.

Dr jeanine downie