Hi I’m Dr. Michelle Jeffries. I’m a Board-Certified Dermatologist and I’m also board-certified in Pediatric Dermatology and Integrative Medicine. And you may not know this, but I also have a Masters degree in Psychology.

I know, a little nerdy of me to be triple board-certified and have a masters degree, but let me explain.

Let’s start with the skin. I think the skin is the most amazing part of our body and I love learning about how it works and interacts with the rest of the body. Even when I was little, I used to sit with the encyclopedia of the human body on my lap while watching cartoons! Our encyclopedia had an insert with several layered clear pages and with each page you turned you would reveal a deeper layer of the human body. The first layer was the skin, next page was all of the muscles, then the organs, then the blood vessels and then the nerves, etc. I couldn’t wait to learn how it all worked and I just knew I was going to be a doctor.

But in college I had two people very close to me die suddenly…. which impacted me a lot (will share more about this later). So I decided to pursue psychology instead….but my passion for medicine never died. I found myself sitting in on anatomy and physiology classes in my “spare time” in my graduate program in psychology and it fascinated me then just as much as it did when I was little. So after I received my masters degree in psychology….I went on to medical school.

During medical school I found myself still struggling with bad acne that had been there since my teenage years, I had skin rashes that I had been dealing with since college, and I had to have some atypical moles removed. Because of these personal struggles with my skin, I found myself drawn to a career in dermatology, but I also wanted to work with kids. I was thrilled to find out that I could be both an adult and a pediatric dermatologist. So during my dermatology training, I also completed fellowship training and board certification in Pediatric Dermatology.

At the end of my dermatology training, I found out that I had some health issues that I didn’t have answers to (….lots more about this later!). I started to look for answers outside of traditional medicine. This led me to something really interesting called Integrative Medicine. Integrative Medicine blends together traditional medicine with alternative medicine, nutrition, herbs, supplements, natural medicine and many other modalities. It does not favor one modality or perspective over the other, but blends them together to find the best solution to address health issues from a holistic perspective. It helped heal my health issue and I knew I had to bring this approach into my dermatology practice so I completed fellowship training and board certification in Integrative Medicine.

All of this training has led me to a very unique approach to skin health called Integrative Dermatology where I blend traditional medicine with natural medicine and I see skin from a holistic perspective.

So now that you know a little bit about nerdy me, I look forward to getting to know you and working together to address your skin and health concerns.

Love,

Dr. J