Things No One Tells You About Working For a Husband/Wife Team

Andrea (00:04):
Well, hi there. I am Andrea Watkins. And if you're listening to this, while juggling three patient calls, checking in a couple patients, taking a payment, selling skincare, and trying to catch your doctor in between procedures, you might be working in an aesthetic practice.

Blake (00:18):
And I'm Blake Lucas, and this is Practiceland. This is not your doctor's podcast.

Andrea (00:24):
Well, welcome back to Practiceland. This is Andrea Watkins and we are here from the aesthetic meeting in Austin, Texas, and I'm joined by Sara Camp.

Sara Camp (00:33):
Hello.

Andrea (00:34):
Hello. It's so nice to have you on our podcast today. You are in the practice with your husband?

Sara Camp (00:41):
I am.

Andrea (00:42):
Dr. Steven Camp.

Sara Camp (00:43):
Yes.

Andrea (00:43):
And tell me a little bit where you guys are located and what your specialties are in your practice.

Sara Camp (00:49):
Sure. So we're in Fort Worth, Texas, not Dallas. We actually talked about this at another podcast yesterday. So Fort Worth is actually 45 miles west of Dallas and we have a practice with about 20 employees, two operating rooms. We do all the great aesthetic stuff, nothing reconstructive, so Botox, fillers, a lot of great surgery going on, breast augmentations, tummy tucks, lipo, all that yummy.

Andrea (01:11):
All of the goodies.

Sara Camp (01:12):
All that yummy fun stuff.

Andrea (01:13):
All of the goodies.

Sara Camp (01:14):
Yes.

Andrea (01:14):
That's wonderful. And what is your role?

Sara Camp (01:16):
Facelifts too, he loves a good deep plane facelift, Rhinoplasties.

Andrea (01:19):
Wonderful. So he is just top to bottom.

Sara Camp (01:22):
Rocking and rolling all day long. Yep.

Andrea (01:24):
That's great for patient retention because one thing onto the next.

Sara Camp (01:28):
Yes.

Andrea (01:28):
And tell me a little bit, what is your role in the practice, Sara?

Sara Camp (01:31):
Yes, so I'm an acute care nurse practitioner, but I really don't function in the healthcare space in that way anymore. I actually run the practice. So I manage our staff, all the HR, legal, finance, manage our team.

Andrea (01:45):
Okay. And how from a acute nurse practitioner, how did you learn the skills to go, that's two completely different skill sets.

Sara Camp (01:54):
Yeah, so I married Steven 17 years ago. We actually met in the hospital, shared a patient when he was a general surgery resident. And then we moved a couple times for different residency and fellowships. And I loved the ICU, but I actually got into the business world because we were moving and I decided to try something out new. And so being in the corporate world, and I actually got into marketing and so I did learn a lot about just that background. And so he actually joined a group practice and we moved back to Texas for four years and I stayed in the corporate world and then I started to notice that we really needed to go out on our own. And so we opened our own practice in 2016 and for about a year I just studied plastic surgery. I quit my job and I read everything I could. I went to every conference I could go to, like Aesthetic Meet, and I built an 80 page business plan. I met with different banks, different attorneys. They're still our attorneys. I saw both Michael and Brad over the last two days and started our practice. So in 2016 and over that time we've built our practice, built a building two years ago.

Andrea (03:03):
Congratulations. That's a huge undertaking. Just getting the permitting for two OR's in and of itself is tough.

Sara Camp (03:10):
Yes. Got our quad A certification in 2023.

Andrea (03:14):
That's incredible. So obviously then both of you are brilliant. It's no easy feat, having coming from similar experience, that's a lot to undertake. So he's lucky to have found you.

Sara Camp (03:28):
Well, I feel lucky to have found him. He's my bestie.

Andrea (03:30):
I love it. So you went from nothing 2016 starting your practice. And you had said earlier in 2025 you have 20 employees.

Sara Camp (03:39):
Yes.

Andrea (03:40):
So how does that break down? How many are more clinical and how many are more sales administrative?

Sara Camp (03:45):
We're almost 50/50. And so we have 10 employees downstairs, 10 employees upstairs. So if you think about downstairs is our surgery center, so that's modern surgery center. So we do open that up to other surgeons to use our surgery center downstairs. And then upstairs is where we have our plastic surgery clinic. And so we have some administrators upstairs. So we have our marketing team, two of them are actually looking at me right now, and we have patient coordinator, front desk, and then the rest are nurses upstairs.

Andrea (04:13):
Wonderful.

Sara Camp (04:13):
And the nurse injectors, laser providers, all that good stuff.

Andrea (04:17):
The folks that we're typically speaking to and through with Practiceland are our front desk teams, our patient care coordinators, our marketing teams, really trying to help them understand how to navigate what can really be a chaotic experience on some days, depending on what's really going on in the practice. So with your guys' practice, you have a very interesting dynamic, which is beautiful and authentic and wonderful, and we see that a lot in practices across the nation where husband and wife are working together and it's their practice. So how does that go in your practice? Is there one person that, is Dr. Camp the boss? Are you the boss? What is the guidelines for your team?

Sara Camp (05:02):
Yeah, so I always say there are a lot of practices that reach out to us, like How do you do it? And I say to other spouses who are interested in doing this, don't do it just because married. If you don't have a background in business or if you don't have a background in healthcare, you really need to make sure you're the right person for the job. And I did not do this for years. So I was in the corporate world and he was in another practice and I really fought against doing it. And actually I asked Steven to fire me, last Christmas and I was like, I don't know if I'm the right person for this. He's like, you are. And I continue to work with him on making me the best I can be. And I actually asked my team to help me to make sure I'm the best I can be too. So, who's the boss? Well, Steven is actually, we say he's our CEO and we have our organizational chart. And we actually met with our team recently to look at our organizational chart because I had everyone reporting to me because the team continued to grow and that cannot function. And so we recently had some different people be promoted up, so they have people reporting to them.

Andrea (06:09):
Love it.

Sara Camp (06:09):
And people still continue to come to me on our staff and think I am still their manager. And I hate that term manager or boss because I think they're

Andrea (06:16):
Leader.

Sara Camp (06:16):
Leader, but I'm continuing to work with my team to say, no, remember this person is your manager, and they then report to me. So don't jump up above, and there's a hierarchy. But again, Steven is our true CEO, he's our leader. And so we do sometimes struggle with that. And then I report to Steven, but he always says that he reports to me.

Andrea (06:38):
Like any good man does.

Sara Camp (06:40):
Yes.

Andrea (06:41):
That's incredible. Because you're married and also working together and also working as leaders in your business, how do you two handle, well, first of all, let me just not make any assumptions. Is there ever conflict between what you think is the right thing for the business and what Dr. Camp thinks is right for the business?

Sara Camp (07:01):
Absolutely. And I'm stubborn and I always think I'm right and sometimes we have to close the door and pause and say, hold on. But yeah, sure there is. And we always try to say, you cannot let that get in the way. But we have shared vision and goals just for life in general. It's why we have a great marriage. And so you have to understand what you're doing as a team, and that's for any couple or any relationship in general. And what I've always tried to teach our staff is whenever Steven and I have an issue, deal with it, right when it happens, when he frustrates me, I just say, let's talk about this right now. And I am not always perfect with that, but they always say hire slowly, fire fast. It's the same thing if you have an issue, talk about it in the moment.

Andrea (07:47):
How did you find your team, having the dynamics you do with the family and everything, when you recruit, what specifically are you looking for characteristically in the folks that you're bringing into your practice?

Sara Camp (08:01):
So I look for great people. I care less about what their background is. I rarely look for people that have background in plastic surgery. I want more people that have a background, like my front desk person, she had a background in banking, some have had background in healthcare. I want good personality. So people that I'm like, I can train anyone up on how to talk about liposuction or breast augmentation. My background was not in plastic surgery, my background was in cardiac surgery. And so I want good people and my team has always been the one who, they interview them first and then they bring them to me second, and then we do long interviewing. So they interview for days with us before we hire them on. So that's kind of our background.

Andrea (08:42):
Something too I like to do with the working interview is it also gives the applicant or the candidate the opportunity to self-select out, because I don't ever, someone could be a phenomenal candidate have a great personality and we love them, but if they're not going to thrive in the practice and really be happy there, it's not going to last long. You're going to have turnover and have all of these, just more work really added to your table in the long run without a doubt. So the working interview and sometimes people are like, oh, I can't come in for a full day or anything like that. I always kind of sell it to the applicant or candidate in the way that Well, we really want to make sure you want to be here too.

Sara Camp (09:26):
Yes.

Andrea (09:26):
This is for you just as much as it is for us.

Sara Camp (09:29):
Yes.

Andrea (09:29):
Yeah, is he can join us?

Sara Camp (09:31):
Do you want to join us? Yeah, come join, Dr. Camp. Just arrived on set.

Andrea (09:36):
I hear you have two children, 13 and 11. So a busy practice sharing the responsibilities of all of that with your wife and being a dotting father, I'm sure.

Steven Camp (09:49):
I like that word choice. So I'm going to store that one away into the file of good vibes. I think Sara can speak to this better than I can, but people talk a lot about the idea of finding ways to get things done, whether that's working together or being a family together. A concept or a word I hear a lot is balance and nothing could be further from the truth.

Sara Camp (10:16):
This is true.

Steven Camp (10:17):
And take this idea from when you watch a ballerina moving, it looks very graceful and they're arching their back and they're moving forward and there's a lot of things and they're on their tippy toes. And the whole idea is to act like things are moving gracefully and smoothly and create a beautiful product. But you can't tell me that those toes feel good. So there's always a pinch. And so I think what we've been able to do is be a team and counterbalance, and there's certain parts of the weight that each one of us carries disproportionately, but the idea that we're counterbalancing for a common goal as opposed to dividing things in equal halves keeps us out of trouble.

Andrea (11:02):
Yeah. Do you guys talk about business at home?

Sara Camp (11:05):
Oh yeah.

Andrea (11:07):
Yeah. Is it like the third child that we're just constantly, it's just all a part of the life. You don't stop it when you walk in the door at the house.

Steven Camp (11:16):
And I've heard people talk about we decide to separate things and at a certain hour of the day we stop talking about X, Y, or Z and essentially compartmentalize those parts of the life. I think we need reminders like, Hey, get off your phone, or hey, quit working on that photo site update in the middle of family time, 8:30 at night on a weekend. I mean, I think we remind each other to do that. We don't have any unnecessary guardrails. I think that we let our business life, our family life just exist. And I don't think, at least from my point of view, you comment on this, Sara, but we don't have any artificial barriers on that.

Sara Camp (11:57):
Exactly. Yeah, I think we talk about it all the time, but we have a joy in talking about it. Sometimes we don't have a joy. Sometimes we're like, oh, this sucks. But we also bring our kids into our work life too. When they come up to the office, our families are part of our office. And so saying that we have, at six o'clock, we stopped talking about it. That would just be so strange because it's our world. And we were here on a Saturday and our staff's here with us and my parents are taking care of our kids this weekend and they're at a baseball tournament, so just cannot, I think people did say that are not being honest to say we stop it at six.

Andrea (12:32):
Have you guys ever had an interaction with either a patient or maybe a sales rep or someone that you're doing business to business work with and not disclosed that you're married?

Sara Camp (12:46):
I always disclose it. I actually had an interaction with a patient recently that I made sure I had told her right on the phone because she called and asked to speak with the office manager and I don't think she knew. And I'm always shocked when people don't know because we wear name tags with my full name on it first and last, but I always disclose it. I think it would be very dishonest for me not to say who I am. And we write letters to all of our patients before surgery and our staff signs it and they'll sign like, love Becky. love Logan, love Casey. But I always say Love Sara Camp. And so I think it would be absolutely dishonest for me not to say, and when I introduce myself to patients, I always say, I'm Sara, I'm one of the nurse practitioners. I'm also Dr. Camp's wife, so I always disclose it.

Andrea (13:32):
Honesty and transparency.

Sara Camp (13:33):
Yes. It's one of our core values is openness and honesty. And so it's like number two core values. So I just think you have to, I don't think it would be right not to.

Andrea (13:41):
Well, and it is aesthetics. Everything we do and the reason that patients choose us first and choose us again is because of that trust factor. So that helps to reiterate that in our relationships with them for sure. Several occasions throughout our conversations, you've pointed back to your values, your core values, your number two core values. Would you mind sharing with me, what are your practice core values?

Sara Camp (14:03):
We have the six or seven, and I wish I had 'em in front of me. To provide the best experience for all patients, honesty and openness for our patients, our staff to be tech and marketing savvy, to be able, affable and available, to be happy campers. What am I forgetting?

Andrea (14:16):
Happy campers.

Sara Camp (14:17):
Yes. That's the last one.

Andrea (14:19):
Love it.

Sara Camp (14:19):
We want our staff to be happy. If you're walking in a bad mood, you're not supposed to. You got to fix that. Which one am I forgetting? Oh, have continuing education. That's a big one.

Andrea (14:28):
Like here at the Aesthetic MEET.

Sara Camp (14:30):
Yes. We are really big on continuing education.

Steven Camp (14:33):
They organize themselves into a list of seven or eight priorities that we feel are really important for patients, but I call 'em the three E's and the three A's. And so it's an experience exceeding expectations, three E's. And so when you unpack that value proposition, it leads to the best experience for all patients possible. It leads to the warm, courteous greetings that we emphasize in our staff and our staff training, that it's more than just a procedure is a connection in a relationship. So the three E's define more than one thing on our bullet points. And then when we look at variables that are associated with high success in staff members, they're the three A's. They're available. And then the other one is A, which is an affable. That means be friendly about things. Don't say, not right now. Don't say I'm in the middle of something, in a way that no one would want to receive. Right? Affable is a way of describing it is really it's awareness. It is being self-aware and being kind throughout the process. And the last part of it is ability. So the technical expertise, the ethics to say, this is what I do and do well, and if I could do it better, how am I going to educate myself? So autonomy from the staff is expected and required because they're going to do these other things. Education from the staff is expected and required because they lean on those three principles. And I also don't believe that we ever have a perfect job or we hire a perfect employee or that I'm a perfect leader or boss. That's never been the case. It's never a vacuum. So everything is about development and the perfect job for each of our employees is the one that they help to craft and create. The perfect job doesn't exist. I didn't make it. I have a position and they have a starting point and we believe in each other because of authority of being hired and I'm the boss, but we grow together because of the personal relationship. And so it's about developing that education, the connection, and it applies to all of our lives. So I think for me, the plastic surgery interaction with the patient is kind of a life principle. It extends to our family, extends to our personal lives.

Andrea (16:53):
So your three A's are, again, availability.

Steven Camp (16:57):
Availability, you got to be present. Yep.

Andrea (17:00):
Affability.

Sara Camp (17:02):
Ability.

Andrea (17:02):
Ability.

Steven Camp (17:03):
That's right.

Andrea (17:03):
Those are three key factors that I think are so great for our listeners because we're really targeting anyone working at the front desk or targeting your patient care coordinators, your marketing teams and being available is so critical, whether it's a patient need or whether it is a team need to help your patient.

Sara Camp (17:22):
I worked for the first two years in our practice as a nurse injector, but I was only doing it one or two days a week. And then I was trying to run the practice and I started to feel like I was not having the ability I needed because being a nurse injector, I feel like you need to do it five days a week to really, really, really be good. Because, I didn't have the time to study it. I didn't have the time to really perfect my craft and I decided to step back and hire somebody like Angela, who's been with us for six years. She's incredible because that's what she does all day every day. It's either inject or do lasers and she's a trainer now. She's grown in the most amazing way. And I said, my ability will never be as good as these girls and men that are doing this every single day. And so that's why I stepped back. So that's what we mean by ability.

Andrea (18:07):
Well, we're going to wrap up here pretty soon, but I think what we'd love to do, we do a segment here, it's called "She did what?" and so this is our fun little portion of our podcast where we would like you guys to share either a crazy patient story where something just random and wild happened that was very shocking, or it could be something incredible that a team member did that you were just really taken aback by like wow, they really went above and beyond and really shocked you in that manner too.

Steven Camp (18:39):
I think that one of the things that I find is people just infused their own home remedies or

Sara Camp (18:47):
That's so true.

Steven Camp (18:47):
Family traditions into post-treatment care. So you're going to go home after a microneedling treatment or a laser treatment where we actually make program poke holes in your skin that are bleeding and you're going to do something like spray Windex on it. I had a patient that read that cayenne pepper was anti-inflammatory, whether that's true or not is immaterial, but they decided that that was going to be a good idea to rub cayenne pepper on their incisions and they kept calling because this burns. And I said, of course it does. I was like, I don't even have an incision and it burns me. So I think that these things don't happen on a daily basis, but I don't know, quarterly, three or four times a year we hear some story of stuff that you're like, no, that's absolutely not in there. The thing that I love about it is we try and be extremely detailed. There'll be patient instructions and then

Andrea (19:37):
All of a sudden there's 17 pages long because you're taking all of the options.

Steven Camp (19:40):
So they're given the things to do, keep your incisions covered, use this silicone-based scar therapy, wear your compression garment. The thing that you can't ever substitute for is there's not a list of things that you can't do. So abdominoplasty patients, they go home, they go to the restroom, they're not being careful, and they call me from the toilet, doctor, my drain fell in the toilet. What do I do with it?

Sara Camp (20:06):
I was thinking,

Steven Camp (20:07):
And I think he's just like, well, we are going to have to salvage that some way. You got to cut that drain off and probably got to come back in the office. I think that the interesting thing is that the number of these stories that are developed over the years has kind of added flavor to our practice and also experience. And they've also kind of calmed me down, softened some rough corners because you have to end up finding a solution, and time over time we have. And so at this point in our practice, patients come in with unusual things or unusual situations, and as long as they have a solution, it's okay. The things that you want to make sure that they stay out of are complications you can't really come back from, but so we have a laundry list of things like that, and I think anything from when can I go swimming to, is it okay to have sex? And it's just weird that people think about that when they're healing.

Sara Camp (21:01):
We had the patient that she did, she was a barrel racer and she went barrel racing two days after her breast augmentation. We had to take her back to the OR. And we had that other one, remember she rode an elephant and we're like, wait, what?

Steven Camp (21:14):
Yeah, so we've had patients over the years, they do things, they feel well.

Andrea (21:18):
Rode an elephant?

Steven Camp (21:19):
And so I think that

Sara Camp (21:19):
Yes, because they feel good after the breast aug and two days later.

Andrea (21:22):
Two days later?

Sara Camp (21:24):
And we're like, seriously? Do we have to put that on our post-op instructions? Please do not ride an elephant after your,

Andrea (21:29):
Do not run from an ostrich. Do not ride an elephant.

Sara Camp (21:32):
Oh my God, our instructions are going to be 75 pages long.

Andrea (21:35):
It's like how the legal documents get longer and longer for measure. Yeah,

Sara Camp (21:40):
She did what? Yeah, she rode an elephant. The barrel racing was pretty amazing. We live in Fort Worth, and so we do have some pretty amazing patients that they're really pretty talented at what they do. So she did,

Andrea (21:52):
But not all days after breast aug.

Sara Camp (21:55):
Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Camp (21:55):
I mean the intersection of I am feeling well and doing well after surgery versus readiness for normal types of activities. So it stands to reason if we say, Hey, no, running and raising your heart rate or no impact exercises, right? Bouncing and jostling on a horse would kind of fall into that category.

Andrea (22:14):
I just have to know what was the solution to the cayenne pepper and how awful was that for them? I just can't imagine. I need to know what happened. What was the resolution?

Steven Camp (22:25):
Please stop doing that.

Andrea (22:26):
Yeah, but could you really just walk it off or was there anything topical to put on? I can't imagine.

Steven Camp (22:32):
You can. The best thing to do is number one, eliminate the offending problem.

Andrea (22:37):
Yes.

Steven Camp (22:38):
Number two, be patient and understand what the skin looks like without extra things kind of mucking up the picture. And then if necessary, when you're damaging a skin barrier, you protect it with hydration type things, whether it be some sort of ointment or hydration moisturizing protected to the skin. And then beyond that, if you've got reactionary things, anti-inflammatory programs, so you stepwise, you just stay calm and then you walk 'em back down and you hit the reset, but it all turns out fine.

Andrea (23:14):
Okay.

Sara Camp (23:15):
It's bonkers.

Andrea (23:15):
I just needed resolution in my mind so I could go through the rest of my day and needed to know that they were okay. Of course they were.

Steven Camp (23:22):
They did. But that one sticks out. I mean, in my wildest dreams, I could have never predicted that.

Andrea (23:28):
Yeah. Well, thank you both so much for being here with us today. I know it's busy, there's a lot to be seen and a lot of people to see. So have a great time while you're here at the Meet and we'll be talking to you soon.

Sara Camp (23:39):
It was our pleasure. Thank you so much.

Andrea (23:41):
Thank you.

Blake (23:44):
Got a wild customer service story or a sticky patient situation? Send us a message or voicemail. If your tale makes it into our "She did what?" segment, we'll send a thank you gift you'll actually love. Promise no cheap swag here.

Andrea (23:56):
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