Today we’d like to introduce you to Anni Lee.
Hi Anni, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am a registered nurse. I grew up in Southern California and moved to Maine after graduating high school. I attended the University of New England and received my Bachelor of Science in Nursing. I then moved to New Hampshire, where I worked at a Level I Trauma Center (Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center) as an ICU and Rapid Response nurse for six years. I met my husband at the hospital while taking care of a patient together, and we have three dogs (one of them being a paralyzed chow mix in a wheelchair who actually belonged to a patient of my husband’s that we adopted) and two cats. He is currently finishing up his residency to be a Neurosurgeon. I am currently living back California as a travel nurse and nurse injector.
I ended back out here because I wanted to take care of my grandfather, who has since then passed, while he was on hospice. By chance, I had looked at the travel rates for nurses and decided to pick up a travel assignment here. All nurses, including myself, were treated so poorly even before the covid pandemic by the hospitals. I took this as my opportunity to take advantage of the situation and actually get paid what I deserved. I even quit nursing for four months because I was so emotionally traumatized by the pandemic and worked as a videographer and social media lead for a well-known pottery company that was loved by people like Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart. Then with my grandpa declining, I became a nurse again, which was something I never wanted to do again. ABC actually interviewed me about burnout in the US d/t the pandemic.
During my travel assignment, I met a friend who was able to get my trained in aesthetic nursing. I have always loved cosmetic procedures ever since first getting botox six years ago. At first, it was a way to cover up all of my insecurities I had about being Korean (which was something I was ashamed of growing up). I then started talking about all of the procedures I got over the years on social media and gained a large following. Opportunities kept falling into my lap, and now I just helped open up a medical spa.
Everything I had been insecure or hated about my life, I now use those to my advantage. If I never had body dysmorphia or an eating disorder all throughout my life, I probably would have never looked into and received plastic surgery, botox, or fillers. If the pandemic never happened, I would have never left the hospital and learned how to make videos that millions of people have watched. I can now combine my nursing degree and my creative artistic side to become an aesthetic nurse and help people via social media to look and feel like their best selves.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Covid Pandemic: Over a four months time period in 2019:
– I postponed my wedding
– My grandfather got diagnosed with cancer
– My parents got divorced
– Started a small business that did exceptionally well so I can take my mind off of all the patients I had dying every day
– And I was a Korean-American ICU nurse in a non-diverse small town in New Hampshire during a pandemic that originated in China and experienced racism for the first time of my life.
Prior to the pandemic, I was struggling with anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, and bulimia. My body insecurities came from being raised in two clashing cultures with different beauty standards. This made me hate being Korean growing up. I was finally comfortable and in a good headspace until the pandemic happened. I hated being Korean again because I was experiencing racism in the hospital by patients even though I was there to help them while being scared for my own life.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I have been an ICU nurse for seven years now. I am now training as an aesthetic nurse who also received a lot of non-invasive and plastic surgery that I share on social media. I am proud that I took everything that I felt was holding me back or hated and turned it around to use it to my advantage. I have the experience of a critical care nurse, the creativity to make videos and gain a large following, and also all of the years of being a patient myself that I can incorporate into teaching about the procedures.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Unfortunately, I don’t have any. I feel like I was always depressed when I was younger or told that I wasn’t good enough. This all just built my character and work ethic that I have now and I am thankful for all of the negative experiences I had in the past and the lessons they taught me.
Contact Info:
- Email: annikimchi@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/annikimchi
- Youtube: youtube.com/annikimchi
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@annikimchi
