The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the global economy, commerce, industry, and our day-to-day lives needs no further introduction. Shifts in global supply and demand, customs, attitudes, and spending behavior have caused a wave of unpredictability in most markets. Such impacts, though all-encompassing, have not hit all industries equally. While some professions are particularly hard-hit, some, like e-commerce, have had a profitable boom amidst the pandemic. For some industries, on the other hand, the pandemic is serving as a litmus test for adaptability of businesses, with those that are able to evolve accordingly earning an opportunity to thrive in the post-pandemic market.
Among such fields, medicine is, of course one of those that is experiencing the largest shifts as all resources are funneled toward essential measures for risk-reduction, mitigation, and rehabilitation for the COVID-19 pandemic. In such a situation, specializations like cosmetic surgery have been disproportionately affected due to the initial hiatus on elective surgical cases. Even after this hiatus, there remains the problem of greater financial barriers for patients who are already struggling economically with the pandemic and concerns regarding the risk of transmission during surgery. The combination of these factors has caused severe financial impacts on the practices of most cosmetic surgeons.
At the same time, however, patient concerns regarding their physical appearance have increased dramatically in the midst of the pandemic. The stress of stay-at-home measures and the overall situation has manifested itself with issues like acne breakouts and hair loss. As such, the demand for cosmetic consultations and procedures has actually increased during the pandemic. This makes the current market a potential gold mine for a cosmetic surgery practice with the foresight, ability, and industry to adapt their methods to fit its rapidly-changing needs.
Dr. Chad Deal’s Southern Surgical Arts is an example of one such cosmetic surgery practice that overcame the odds of COVID-19 and found a way to even greater success. With Dr. Deal foreseeing the extent of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on his market from as early as March 2020, he was able to anticipate how the outbreak would permanently change how their medical field was going to be practiced. Dr. Deal correctly predicted the increase in the importance of virtual consultations, social media, and health, fitness, and beauty content. By making the appropriate changes, Dr. Deal was able to exponentially grow his business from a local to a national company in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite this, the journey has not been easy for Dr. Deal, with the doctor having had to work from home for 12 to 15 hours a day during the pandemic. His time was split between social media promotion, the constant production of promotional yet informative and entertaining content on his Instagram, and of course, virtual consultations, the number of which reached more than 20 in a single day.
The payoffs, however, made all the effort more than worth it. Today, Southern Surgical Arts has grown into a company of 50 employees and made $9.5 million in gross sales in 2020. Dr. Deal’s Instagram account, which now has over 500,000 followers, has been a huge contribution to this growth. Since growing his online and social media presence, Dr. Deal’s Southern Surgical Arts has had patients flying from as far as California and New York to his practice in Chattanooga, Tennessee, just to avail of his services.
Beyond his innovative approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Chad Deal is a triple-board certified, highly-accomplished cosmetic surgeon with over 4,800 successful cosmetic surgical procedures. He is an active member of various professional and academic associations in cosmetic surgery and trains talented surgeons each year as a faculty of the Southern Surgical Arts’ American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery’s Fellowship Program. His practice, Southern Surgical Arts, is the first SRC Center of Excellence in Plastic Surgery and Body Contouring-accredited facility in the entire United States.
You can find out more about Dr. Chad Deal and Southern Surgical Arts through Dr. Deal’s Instagram at @drhidef.ssa or his website.
