Doc Maika: Every Form of Beauty

By Roxy De Guzman

Doc Maika founded Slate Medical Group in order to help patients become the best versions of themselves inside and out. While she specializes in cosmetic surgery and aesthetic medicine, Doc Maika also understands the importance of empowering her patients so that they feel as good as they look. She stated the #InclusiBEAUTY campaign to celebrate every form of beauty without discriminating by race, gender, sexual orientation, age, or skin tone.

“All of these groups make up our beauty customer base and Slate believes they should all be represented,” states Doc Maika. “My clinic believes in providing inclusivity to those who are unfortunately often neglected and marginalized in the industry.”

Doc Maika is also a firm believer in building personal friendships with clients. By getting to know each of them on a more personal level, she is able to curate a more targeted treatment plan to match their beauty needs. She and her team make an effort to involve their clients in creating the treatment plans in order to build trust and achieve the best results. In addition, Doc Maika is emphasizing her support for diverse communities by working with her team to create a YouTube channel that highlights Drag culture.

In addition, Doc Maika is using her platform to highlight the relationship between health and beauty. While beauty can come from empowerment, mindset, and lifestyle, managing one’s health often requires a great deal of background knowledge in the medical field. Slate Medical Group is making sure that patients are healthy from the inside out by working on an obesity awareness campaign. 

“We are currently working on our obesity awareness campaign so the clinic will be able to educate people regarding their weight management and long-term options,” continues Doc Maika. 

Although Slate Medical Group is growing increasingly successful, the company definitely had its own fair share of struggles before reaching its current heights. Because the company was founded with an emphasis on personal relationships and building a community, it was greatly affected by the quarantines and social distancing practices of the pandemic. The company was forced to close clinics and shell out additional funds without the regular clinic income. However, Doc Maika’s resilience helped her find a way to keep Slate running.

With the beginning of the pandemic, Doc Maika catered more to home service treatments. She and her team followed sanitation protocols as they continued to provide services such as facials and slimming procedures. They also made sure not to book too many patients at once.

“We had to pivot our focus to online consultations,” explains Doc Maika. “We also opened an online store, which was helpful to reach out to our loyal clients who wanted beauty products delivered to their homes… Bouncing back was not easy after weeks of closing down.”

Doc Maika credits her resilience to her family’s history of strength and business acumen. She was raised by a single mother who taught her the importance of strength, independence, and hard work. In addition, Doc Maika draws inspiration from her paternal grandmother who still closely monitors and runs her business. She has accumulated a lot of wisdom from her family and her previous career experiences, which she hopes to share with others.

“It’s okay to make mistakes, as long as you pick up the lesson that was learned from them,” explains Doc Maika. “Life is sometimes sweet, sometimes sour. Don’t be discouraged if things are not going well, strive and rise above them.”