Celebrating Women’s History Month with Mindy Haws, MD, and the LIMITLESS Initiative

In a conversation with Dermatology Times, Melinda (Mindy) Haws, MD, immediate past president of The Aesthetic Society and board-certified plastic surgeon from Nashville, Tennessee, discussed her involvement with the LIMITLESS program. LIMITLESS is a collaboration between Allergan Aesthetics, The Aesthetic Society, and The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) that provides inspiring resources and content for female leaders in the industry.

Q: What is the LIMITLESS initiative and how has it evolved since its conception in 2020?

A: Allergan's always been a big supporter of their physicians and of their female physicians that they work with. In 2020, they started the LIMITLESS initiative that worked to tell the stories of women leaders, as well as to do videos of the presidents, but also to help younger women coming up get into the leadership track. I know dermatology, according to AI, is 52 to 61% female practicing dermatologists. Right now, in 2025, plastic surgery, board-certified plastic surgeons are only 20%. So we still have ways to go to get equity. Now it's interesting the last 3 years, it's been 50/50 women going into plastic surgery residencies. But even if that continues, and the only people that retire are men, it'll be 20+ years before we're at 50/50. So, there is a need for help with leadership; How do we become leaders? How do we be good leaders? And that's not just in societies, it's in our practices, it's in our lives, and women physician struggles are different than men. 

Q: Can you tell us about the new videos, podcasts, and other pieces of content that are coming in 2025?

A: So, they have worked to record and do video interviews with each of the women presidents of different plastic surgery organizations. They also started a podcast, which talked with women plastic surgeons about different struggles in their lives. And these are not necessarily unique to plastic surgeons, but they're probably pretty unique to women physicians. I was in one of the early podcasts about how not all families look the same, because I was a single mother with no other parent involved for the first 17 years of my child's life. So, there's all different ways that this content is helping to support our women physicians and our women leaders. So it started with videos with the presidents, it's been podcasts, and it's also been in-person meetings once a year that are limited to 50 women who are young to leadership. And they get to interact in close, personal quarters with established women physician leaders and to talk about challenges, what they did, how they created their career, how they changed their career...whether some of them are chief medical officers now of hospitals. Some are retired. Some run their own practices. Some are department heads at academic universities. So, there's so many different paths open to us, but as women, since we're only 20% of the whole, there's not a whole lot of women ahead of us for us to look at and say, "Hm, I'm going to follow her path."

It's the LIMITLESS Leadership Summit, and they have combined it with the Women Plastic Surgery meeting that ASPS puts on. LIMITLESS is the two days before and has panels for discussion. But also, because it's limited to 50 attendees plus the panelists, you can get really close on interaction and get those questions asked and answered that you need to make decisions about your own life.

Q: How does Allegan Aesthetics work with The American Society of Plastic Surgeons and The Aesthetic Society on this inspiring project?

A: I think a lot of it is collaboration, it's video support, it's collaborating with physicians in their offices or in their academic institutions to provide them with support and training. Allergan has its own institute that they really work hard to make sure that their products are being used in the appropriate way. And I know as a plastic surgeon, if there is one bad surgical result, if there's one bad injectable result in the country, it flashes back on all of us who are core aesthetic providers. So, it's in our best interest that everybody is trained well and trained appropriately, and Allergan has really taken that on and done its best. Botox is the name in toxins. Patients use that in place of the name of any other toxins on the market because it is so prevalent, because it's so well used, and because it has such a safety record. So, Allergan has stepped up and they take responsibility for their product and they do training. But they're also working to help us flesh out our whole practice, not just our injectable section, or not just our breast implant section. Because they know a happy physician who's doing well in their practice is going to continue to use their products forever. And it's a real collaborative effort. And again, in plastic surgery, they didn't have to do that. 80% of them out there are still men, but they recognize that the women are growing for us. I like to say I'm on this leading lip of the tsunami of women plastic surgeons coming along, and it's so exciting to see all these incredible talents behind me. And I want to give back and I want to help them climb on my shoulders and go higher, and Allergan gives me a podium to do that and has allowed me to really reach more women than I could have on my own.

Q: What do you want female dermatologists and aesthetic clinicians to know about this program? What are some of the biggest takeaways?

A: What I want them to know is that this is a program for leadership. But leadership doesn't mean president of a society or department head in an academic institution or even chief medical officer. As physicians, we are all leaders of our team, and whether you're a surgeon and that's in the operating room, whether you're a dermatologist, and that's in your office, we do better learning to lead. And not all of us grew up with good leadership examples. And even if you did, we can always do better and we can always be better. So, I want people to know that I think Allergan listens and they're very willing to collaborate, and they're willing to invest in the women physician leadership. And it's been really exciting, and they recognize women are...not that our challenges are harder or worse or anything than men. It's not worse than men's, it's not harder than men's, but it's definitely different. We all have to decide and prioritize when we're going to do what in our lives. The biological clock is a real thing, as well as the care and taking of kids and the care and taking of family members. It's different for women and Allergan understands that and realizes that and is helping us have the tools to be better in our practice. I just want people to know that leadership is not just on a macro level, it's on a micro level. We all lead our families and we lead our offices.

Q: As someone who’s so established in the industry, what is your biggest piece of advice for women who are new to the field?

A: My biggest piece of advice is that you can have it all, just not necessarily all at the same time. And I think as physicians, we are experts at deferred gratification because after college, we go to medical school and then we further delay the big paycheck by doing a residency and maybe we do fellowships. So, we're really good at deferred gratification. And just realize in your lifetime, just because you're not in the leadership position right this minute, doesn't mean you won't be 2 years from now. So you can have it all. It's about timing, it's about prioritizing. It's about paying for those things that make your life easier and better, and understanding that it's a marathon. It's not a sprint. And there's a lot of women out there who've done it every wrong way possible, willing to share our mistakes, as well as the things we learned.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share with our Dermatology Times audience?

A: I was really excited that I was talking to Dermatology Times because historically, I don't know that the core aesthetic medicine and surgery providers have all collaborated as well as they do now, right? There's been this misconception that surgeons think of themselves differently from dermatologists, but we're all part of the whole, and I think it's really exciting to be published in Dermatology Times. The Aesthetic Society has actually opened their meeting to core aesthetic providers, to facial plastics, to dermatologists, to oculoplastics, because we're [all] the ones who do it right and do it correctly and do it safely. So we all need to collaborate, share our knowledge and patient safety information, protect patients, and be well-trained because the aesthetic industry is so big. There's just too many people in it who really don't necessarily have the training, but all of us do. So, it's exciting to be able to talk to this audience because there's just so many opportunities for us to collaborate for education and safety. And I always say, there are so many patients who want neurotoxins now or fillers, that even if every single plastic surgeon stopped operating and only provided those things, there's not enough of us. The demand is bigger. And so we need to continue to train our young plastic surgeons, our young dermatologists, our young facial plastics, to do things safely and effectively for the greater good, for all of us to do better. Aesthetic medicine has exploded and it's only going to get bigger and those of us who have trained long and hard for it are in the position to really lead on that and make sure things are done well. And with our industry partners like Allergan, we really can't go wrong. I'm big on collaboration. There are so many patients out there and it's just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. So, the more we work together and the more we communicate, the better things will be.