Dealing with COVID, Grief & Opportunities for Medical Spas and Practices

I wanted to do a weekly check-in with you all and just kind of keep in touch as well, and share some tips and some other things that come up.

I also want to answer any questions, so if you have questions, please post them below and I will answer them.

I have been using Zoom for my meetings and lately, I discovered if you go to the video area and next to the stock video click the triangle, and choose “virtual background” you can change your background for your Zoom calls.

I had found a nice clean desk image and I thought, hey, this looks pretty cool!

The desk background that I found had a little mood lighting and everything is clean because if you actually saw my desk, you would be like, man, how does he get anything done?

A tip with using this virtual background is to not move around too quickly, as the real background will start to appear.

Many of you are probably doing Zoom meetings, so if you want to ditch the living room or the dining room furniture, you can just do this virtual background trick and make your background to anything you want.

There are some default images, but what I did is I went on the internet and I found an image and just added it to Zoom.

I appreciate all of you who have been posting on our Facebook page – this is just awesome.

I have been posting every time I find some articles about small business practice financing, government subsidy tips, as well as just some humor because we need it!

These are just crazy unprecedented times that also have a lot of opportunities. sure a lot of you are in social distancing, and your business or your clinic may be closed down or it may be reduced.

One thing you can do from home is to offer weight loss, as many of you took our Medical Weight Management Program, and now it is a great opportunity to do it from home.

I will be doing a video in the future on some strategies on how to promote your weight loss program during social distancing.

So keep in mind as something that you will be able to offer weight loss even though you may be physically closed.

I don’t know about you, but I know me, sometimes I have this frustration, this sadness and a sense of overwhelming of what is going on.

I was on a Zoom call this morning, and one of my colleagues mentioned that what we are going through with COVID is just like going through grief.

And if you look at the different stages of grief, it will start to make sense. I never really thought of it like that!

I had googled “grief” and the “stages of grief”, and depending on what page you will find, it may be a five-step or a seven-step.

The seven stages I found are:

1) Shock and Denial;

2) Pain and Guilt;

3) Anger and Bargaining (How am I going to get out of this?);

4) Depression, Reflection & Loneliness;

5) The Upward Turn (Hopefully, you guys are starting to see some optimism here. We are starting to hear some flattening of the curve and maybe some good stories coming out.);

6) Reconstruction and Working Through (This is something you are going to have to think about what is after, as this isn’t gonna last forever. 

It is going to be a month or maybe two at the most tell, trust me people are going to need Botox. 

Also, Doritos are flying off the shelves, so weight loss is huge and is going to be the biggest gain. 

Statistically, the 28 days from January 1 to basically Thanksgiving is when the biggest gains happen, but we are going to see huge gains and as it gets nicer out, people are going to want to lose weight.)

7) Acceptance and Hope.  You, your friends, your family, your colleagues, and even your patients are most likely going through one of these stages. 

Just be mindful of that when you are talking with them and that everyone is going through a tough time. 

Some people still may be in denial like this is a hoax – trust me, this is not a hoax, I wish it was a hoax, but it’s not.  Click here for the article I found on the seven-steps of grief.

Remember this, you need to stay healthy! So many times we’re thinking about our kids, our family, our parents, our old friends, uncles, colleagues, were thinking about everyone else but ourselves.

So make sure you take the time every day, eat healthily and exercise. I have been doing my peloton bike every second day for exercise and recently I discovered that even if you don’t have a bike, they have an app you can use.

Their app has meditation, yoga, and exercises using bands or strength exercises, or just your bodyweight.

This may be something you recommend to your patients as well just to get some movement in as part of their life, because the more you move, the better you’re going to feel.

And just remember to take care of you first, and then you’ll be in a much better position to take care of everything.

Stay healthy!

Jeff Russell
Executive Director