ST. GEORGE — For most of her career, Tina Moussally has had her skin in the game as far as building practices for other doctors from Hawaii to California. But it is in St. George where she hopes to make her dermatology dreams come true.

In the process, she is hoping to be the cure for a long waiting list of people locally who have been waiting months to take care of their skin problems.

Moussally, master of physician assistant studies and board certified physician assistant, just brought 16 years of medical experience to St. George by opening her own dermatology practice. Known for a keen ability at finding melanoma cases for other doctors, she said she’s ready to bring healing and self-confidence to the community. 

“My passion is saving lives. I need the art and the creativity and the beauty and aesthetic but I also need to give back and save lives because that’s why I’m in medicine,” Moussally said, adding she has an “aesthetic mindset.”

As a means of celebration and official introduction to the community, the grand opening of her new dermatology office – Derm Haven – will take place Friday. The free event, at 352 E. Riverside Drive from 2 to 6 p.m., will include a ribbon-cutting, tours, food, swag bags, raffles and deals on everything from laser treatments to botox and more.

Moussally, who moved from Maui, Hawaii, to St. George last October, said patients tell her they have been unable to get a dermatology appointment for five or more months, and she’s ready to help fill a healing hole in the community now. Her practice is the first new dermatology practice to open in St. George in almost 10 years.

“I don’t want to see 30 patients a day,” Moussally said. “I schedule my patients for a whole hour because if you don’t look and you aren’t conscientious about your exams, you’re not going to find it.”

Moussally said this is especially important as far as detecting skin cancer, her passion.

“If you’re getting your patients in and out quickly, you’re not taking care of the patients you take care of. You’ve got to serve the people you serve.”

After graduating from California State University, Bakersfield with a bachelor of science in biology, pre-medical and completing a master’s degree in physician assistant studies at the Western University of Health Sciences, Moussally said her medical career officially began in oncology, where she gained knowledge of cancer management. As a physician’s assistant for eight different doctors, the tragedy and death rate that came with oncology slowly broke her spirit. Between her career and being a mother of two small children, she decided it was time for a change.

She left oncology to work at an office with two doctors who were brothers. One doctor performed plastic surgery while the other practiced dermatology. As she spent time in the operating room sewing up breast surgeries and finishing nose jobs, she felt unfulfilled.

“It didn’t feel meaningful,” Moussally said. “I had gone from one extreme to the other. Oncology was so meaningful and so impactful, but too much for me and plastics weren’t enough.”

When she began to work on the dermatology side, something she had sworn off early in her career, she fell in love with the dynamics. Dermatology offered the ability to perform procedures along with aesthetics and oncology, which made her feel in balance for the first time in her medical career.

After a few years of working with the doctors, Moussally said she wanted to open up her own dermatology center. She reached out to the previous oncology office she had worked for and suggested a partnership. In California, the law requires physician assistants to practice under a dermatologist with an MD, so she found a doctor that was interested and her plans quickly came together. When it came time to sign contracts, she was left completely out of the practice’s paperwork. 

“It was my practice,” Moussally said. “I ran it, I was there five days a week, while the doctor was there one day a week. I built it. And it’s a thriving practice to this day that I’m super proud of.”

After years of building the practice from the ground up, she decided it was time to part ways. With no paperwork legally showing her a part of the practice, she felt unrecognized for her hard work but reminded herself that she built it once and she could build it again.

In 2018, Moussally moved to Maui, Hawaii, with her husband, where she signed a three-year contract with a dermatology office. The doctor had never had an assistant before and was burnt out, so her job was to take as much off his plate as possible. All surgeries not done on the face were completed by her and she personally implemented aesthetics and medical, creating a full-service dermatology practice that didn’t exist before her arrival. 

The last year Moussally practiced medicine in Hawaii, she said she diagnosed more melanomas in her career than she ever had before.

“It was like a wild, melanoma pandemic over there,” she said. “There were 10 days in June last year where I called somebody every single day to tell them they had melanoma and it weighed really heavy on my heart.”

With her gift of detecting skin cancer as well as her artistic aesthetic craft, she said the practice grew like wildfire and the locals even named her the “melanoma whisperer” due to how quickly she diagnosed melanoma cancer growths. During many exams, she finds herself feeling guided, catching melanomas in places she wouldn’t normally look.

After years at the facility, the doctor decided to retire from his practice. Although she had grown and established the practice exponentially, he had something to sell that was his and she was left feeling that same familiar feeling — she had built someone else’s practice and had nothing to show for it.

“He said to me, you really built this office and I appreciate everything you’ve done and I really want to acknowledge it and thank you for everything,” Moussally said. “He asked if there was anything he could do for me. In my head, I wanted to scream that he should pay me out of the practice I had built, but he said, ‘You should at least go to the country club and get yourself a nice bottle of wine.’”

Feeling discouraged, she politely walked away. That same month in 2021, Utah passed the right for physician assistants to practice independently and she began researching Utah. She visited St. George for the first time and fell in love with the scenery and the people.

“In my opinion, St. George is every bit as beautiful as Maui. It’s just a different kind of beautiful. I love being in beautiful places because that spurs my creativity and aesthetic mind,” Moussally said.

After moving to St. George last October, she discovered Utah has some of the highest melanoma rates in the country, with St. George being the highest in the state. She instantly knew she was brought to St. George for a reason.

“I gravitated towards dermatology because it’s cutaneous oncology and it’s the thing I’m most passionate about. I’m passionate because melanoma kills people. It kills somebody every hour of every day in the United States. But it’s not just for death purposes but disfigurement.”

Moussally said that practicing dermatology with an aesthetic mindset allows patients to have damaged areas removed without leaving scars on places such as the face and neck and prevents skin cancer from going undetected or late diagnosis. Her combination of dermatology and aesthetic practice takes place in every season, such as a patient getting botox and a skin exam along with discussions about skin cancer prevention.

“All my medical patients need my aesthetic mindset and my aesthetic patients need my medical mindset. 90% of my patients fall under that sweet spot category of both,” Moussally said.

From the elderly with blood vessels on their face from past sun damage to a simple photo facial to remove them, her patients are able to find options they may not have known existed. She also works with the removal of benign growths, which she said most doctors don’t discuss removing, but are often a self-conscious sore spot for the patient. 

“Whether you’re coming in for botox or bringing a child in for a wart, this is a private, luxury type experience,” Mousally said about Derm Haven.” I space out my patients with an hour slot each, which means most of the time you won’t even see another patient in here at the same time as you.”

Alongside running her St. George practice, Moussally continues to practice aesthetics in California every six weeks to continue care for long-term patients. She frequently attends conferences around the U.S. in order to bring the latest and greatest in dermatology and aesthetics back to St. George.

“I’ve always said your people will find you,” Moussally said about her new business. “If you’re doing good medicine, and you’re practicing with your heart, there’s no way you can fail.”

For more information on Derm Haven, visit their website or follow them on Instagram and Facebook.

Ed. Note: A previous story mistitled Moussally as a dermatologist. The story has been updated to correct this.

Event details

• What: Derm Haven Grand Opening
• When: Friday, Sept. 23, 2-6 p.m.
• Where: Derm Haven, 352 East Riverside Drive #A3 in St. George.
• Admission: Free
• For more information see the event page

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