Dr. Teri Fisher
Hello there, Nadine, and welcome to the Anti-Aging Podcast.

Nadine Frame
Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Teri Fisher
This is really exciting because I get to speak with the CEO and the co-founder of Anti-Aging and I’m really excited to chat with you to learn about your background, how you got into this industry, and particularly what goes into the consultation process, ’cause I know you do a lot of that at the clinic. So, to start us off, why don’t we just learn a little bit about you and your background, where you’re from. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Nadine Frame
I’m South African, as you can probably hear. My husband and I started in South Africa. He was a new grad at the time when we got married, and decided to come out to Canada largely cause he really believed in preventative health. He worked with AIDS patients, and he did the first seroprevalence study in HIV pregnant patients In South Africa. And the Country was not really ready to hear about AIDS, not really ready to hear that HIV was actually going to be a big problem. And once that study was done and we wanted to travel a bit, I was working film industry. I was an artist, and I wanted to go and study in, do some research in Europe and we needed to make money. South African Rand was not going very far. So we came out to Canada, we worked rural Canada, fell in love with this beautiful place and decided to stay on after working two and a half years in Thompson, Manitoba.

Dr. Teri Fisher
Oh, wow.

Nadine Frame
I continued working doing my art and working in the film industry making some movies up there in Thompson, and by the time I was settled in Vancouver, my husband Dr Gidon Frame opened Burnaby Clinic Old Orchard Medical, and this a GP clinic. Now in South Africa where he worked in Baragwanath Hospital one of the biggest problems there was TB, and what would happen is the patient would come in, treat the patient for TB, or treat the patient with HIV, treat the patient, but if the patient goes back into the community and there’s no prevention, that patient’s coming back again with disease and so is their community.

Dr. Teri Fisher
Mm-hmm. ,

Nadine Frame
This was really frustrating for us because there was no way of us getting any handle on preventative health. And so in the background, this has always been a background for us. Coming mean to Canada was because we believed in health as a right and that everybody should have access to free health. And it didn’t matter how much money you had, but you could have a Family physician, didn’t matter what culture, what background, you could choose your family physician. We love that medical format. And that’s what brought us to Canada.

Dr. Teri Fisher
That’s wonderful.

Nadine Frame
In spite of the fact that we still love the mountains, the ocean, the life, the freedom, the freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, and the personal freedom that it gave us that we were safe. And so being a mom of three kids now, I am very happy that I was able to bring my children up here.

Dr. Teri Fisher
That’s wonderful. And I’m familiar with the the Old Orchard Medical Clinic because as I mentioned on a previous podcast, I was a medical student with your husband as well. And that was wonderful. That was one of my first introductions to family medicine. Now, he did that and he still does that. But this transition for you personally into anti-aging, aesthetic medicine, cosmetic medicine. Tell me a little bit more about that for you. How did that happen? Why did that happen? What’s the story there?

Nadine Frame
So because he’s so passionate about preventative health, he was looking to be able to spend more time with patients. So at Old Orchard He can spend 10 minutes, 15 minutes, half an hour, or an hour if he wants, but he’s not gonna get paid for it and he’s certainly not able to spend a lot of time on prevention. There’s a huge demand for doctor time and he isn’t able to spend time. He’s not paid to look at your genetic profile, your family history, your context, and look at what may go wrong. We don’t want to end up our lives having wonderful opportunities that are science today, testament to us living longer, and don’t want to spend our last years, 20 years, drooling in diapers in a home. We want quality life, and he wants to be able to provide patients with that support. So we looked at opening an anti-aging clinic. He’s certified with the American Board of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine, one of the first in the country, went down to the states, did the full certification, wrote the exams, came back, and and he’s also certified CCFP as a family practitioner specialist. So the combination of those two specialties enabled him to really offer a good portfolio of experience and knowledge: hormones, genetic, but genetics and so forth to the patients. But when we were at these conferences, which I attended to with him, we learned that aging is not just organ aging. We are able to help you with hormones and organ problems or foresee some of the things with blood work serum. There’s all sorts of interesting things happening in the world of anti-aging, but cosmetically, there were also interesting things happening and so this became my baby.

Dr. Teri Fisher
I love that. So tell me more about that. What was your role in this? How did you get involved?

Nadine Frame
Because I’m an artist, I love the aesthetic world and I was able to see when we are able to do treatments, I see the materials that we have in the cosmetic world as my paint, my paintbrush, my airbrush, my carving tool. And so being a 3D visualizer, I see the face as a space to do full architecture on. So we can look at the outer layers, like the paint or the texture, whether we are going to use brick or whether we are going to use, depending on what kind of texture we are looking for, and always the skin. We are looking for smooth. We are looking for tight. We are looking for firm. So we wanted to go away from concrete and rock and maybe bark. And so I understood clearly that the materials that we have from injections and lasers were able to transition skin, and not only skin, we can contour the face and body. And This is really exciting. In this day and age, we can help you if you were not born with high cheek bones, and feel that your face is flat or square, we can transition that in a natural, beautiful way. And this is what it takes- vision. This is an art, and this, when people say to me, why aren’t you doing your art? I say I’m doing my art: live people’s faces.

Dr. Teri Fisher
That’s amazing. It just makes so much sense now with the art background and the way you describe that with the different textures and the different materials, it all just comes together. So that leads us really nicely into this next part, where one of the roles that you do at the clinic I know is being a consultant when patients come in, and I already have an idea of what that involves, just hearing you speak about your artistic eye, but maybe you can break that down for us. What does a consultation mean for a patient? What do you do? What can a patient expect during that process? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Nadine Frame
Sure. So The initial consultation with a patient or with anybody, and even my relationship with whoever you are listening to this podcast, is about how we communicate, how we understand each other. It’s about that depth of care and if you feel that care, you feel heard, then you’re going to a place where you’re going to get results. So first and foremost, I wanted to create a clinic where we could have time to understand what our patients needs are, from not only their medical and their cosmetic, but bringing those two together, marrying their life of aging and maturing, and have that process easthetically as pleasing as possible while we live life well.

Dr. Teri Fisher
So when a patient comes in, a new patient let’s say, and they’re looking to make some type of change, and they’re gonna sit down with you as a consultant. So what are the kind of things that you’ll go through with them? How will you approach that discussion?

Nadine Frame
The initial consultation involves me really listening. Firstly, we’ll take a series of photograph, all different expressions so we understand and have it documented how your muscles move. We will look at what kind of skincare you have. We will also look at what is your main concern. So to address those concerns often take a holistic view of your face, especially if it is facial consultation, which is mostly what I do, and we look at what is it that’s bothering you and how can we make that turn that around so it becomes more attractive and doesn’t bother you anymore. So we do a series of photographs. We then mark it up on an iPad. So when you go home, you can recall everything that was discussed, and you’ll have a visual with understanding what happened, what was the conversation about, and what were the recommendations. So we will go through your main concern. Say for example your main concern, which is very common, nasolabial folds is what many people see as their first concern. And then we will look at why did that nasolabial fold occur? So we look at the impact of gravity, the impact of your lifestyle, how you out there exposing yourself to snow or sun or lights, and is that causing degradation of the skin. If there’s degradation of the skin, is that what we need to address? Or is the skin lost its tenacity? Has it lost its density? Are we able to lift and strengthen that skin? Or do we maybe need to put volume in another area where you maybe naturally lost volume? We understand that fat in the face moves as we age, so maybe we need to replace or replenish some areas of the face. It is a sculpture that is presented to me with a challenge, and it’s always exciting for me to be able to offer a full overall conversation and opportunity to go into the different depths of what’s available to you.

Dr. Teri Fisher
And this is clearly where your expertise comes in. As you were speaking about the structure, it made me think about something that people can relate to. For example, if somebody notices something’s breaking on their home, a cracked tile, is it just the tile that’s on the surface, or is it because some type of foundation, there’s an issue underneath or some issue with the flooring? So it’s not just what the person is seeing, but there’s a lot more depth to that. And that’s where I think your expertise comes in. That’s I think what you’re trying to say there or what you’ve said.

Nadine Frame
Absolutely. We often use the analogy of the mattress in the bedroom. We have to really get that mattress to be springy and dense and firm or soft depending on where it is, on the face, on the body. And then we have to make sure that the sheets over top are clean and firm and starched otherwise you would not want to go onto this beautiful bed if the mattress were dirty or if the sheets were dirty. So the balance between what’s going on underneath, understanding the structure and faces are interesting, they’re not just about, there’s no one right and wrong. It’s a little bit of taste and culture. Ethnicity matters. What culture do you come from? I have a big Jewish nose. And so many Asian women said to me, I want a nose just like yours. I’m like, okay, well, uh, maybe it would be inappropriate on your face to have this hooked nose on your beautiful, soft face. But it’s often maybe a place to resident the glasses so that there is somewhere for the old glasses to sit on your nose. So this practical parts of developing contours on the face as well as cultural aesthetic.

Dr. Teri Fisher
Absolutely. And again I think that’s where the expertise comes in. If someone’s hearing this podcast and they’re hearing you talk about the consultation process and they’re thinking about doing it, what would you suggest be a thing or some things that a person should look for in selecting a clinic or where to go for these potential treatments.

Nadine Frame
To start with you’re looking for a place you communicate well with, that they give you an overall picture. It’s not about today. It’s about the long term of aging. It’s about the processes, they’ll give you an idea what we can do now, we’ll do short term, long term, and overall cost, and look at your budget. Bring your budget clear upfront. This is what I want to invest in my face. It’s an investment. It’s your body. It’s your face. It’s how you feel about yourself. How you present to the world, and you need to have a clear understanding for yourself. This is where my investment’s going to be. So we need to differentiate if we have a limited budget, certainly skincare is very important. So we don’t want to blow it all on your Botox and fillers. We want to make sure that within that budget we are able to give you a full range. Maybe it’s lasers and skincare, or combination of the different offerings, but you need to know what are these offerings? And what will actually give you results? How long the results will last, what downtime will be involved? How long will it take to actually do the procedure? Is this something you have to plan for? Is this something you ‘re gonna have pain with? What are they gonna do for the pain management? Will you go home red and sore? And what kind of support there will be afterwards? Some treatments also involve maybe multiple steps to it. For example, when we do lips, we’ll have a basic treatment and you’ll come back a couple weeks later once the swelling is down. If we need to chop it up or adjust something, we will do it then.

Dr. Teri Fisher
That’s fantastic. So I think then for the sake of time here, we will start to wrap things up here. Again, if somebody’s now listened to this and they say, well, maybe I should check out anti-aging and I should go and have a consultation with Nadine, how can they get in touch with you? How can they set up an appointment with you?

Nadine Frame
Go to antiagingvancouver.com or you’ll find there that you can actually contact us, book directly, or you can call into the clinic and we’ll gladly help you. And the phone number is 604-261-9121.

Dr. Teri Fisher
Wonderful. Well, Nadine, thank you so much for spending a few minutes of your precious time chatting with me and with our listeners. It’s been a real pleasure and I look forward to having you on the podcast many more times over the next while. Thanks so much.

Nadine Frame
This is very exciting. Thank you. Thank you for giving me the time.