Meet Lea Pace

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lea Pace a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lea, so happy to have you on the platform and I think our readers are in for a treat because you’ve got such an interesting story and so much insight and wisdom. So, let’s start with a topic that is relevant to everyone, regardless of industry etc. What do you do for self-care and how has it impacted you?

As a natural born over-achiever, I’ve had to hone my self-care skills and up my game year after year to be able to do what I do. When I was in my 20’s, I didn’t have a great concept of self-care or a good example of someone to mirror in my life but I had an unstoppable drive to achieve, to prove I was worthy. I worked hard and played hard, and because I was young I could keep up, meet my goals without crashing badly enough to fail. I graduated with an undergraduate degree in Biological Psychology with honors and worked in molecular biology for several years, then went back for my masters in Physician Assistant Studies. Those high achieving and figuring out who I was years were largely a blur.
As I entered my 30’s as an establish physician assistant in San Diego, I began to need more balance in my life. I needed a soft place to fall when times got tough and I had to learn to be that soft place for myself. I was able to advocate so fiercely for my patients and have endless patients and kindness with my friends, yet I was exceedingly hard on myself. I had to make some major changes in my relationship with myself, and in particular with my self-talk. I was about 34 years old when I remember writing a letter to myself, apologizing for being so hard on the growing and developing me. The letter was filled with incites on how I had mistreated myself historically and how I planned to advocate for myself moving forward to build myself up rather than being hypervigilant and tear myself down. This self-amends was the beginning of a positive voice in my head that would become a strong nidus for great self-care. I began to look at my actions at the end of each day and give myself praise for slowing down, saying no, being gentle, taking naps, and for loving myself. Essentially I began to take care of myself the way I’d always wanted my parents or my significant others to, I was able to begin to give myself what I needed. A big soft place to fall. A loving voice when life got tough.
I would get married and start a family in the next few years. With each grand event, I had to give myself permission to slow down and to be a “human being” rather than a “human doing.” I began a meditation practice in my late 30’s and in 2020, the year that changed all of our lives, I got sober and made a new years resolution to be in the present moment more than I had been in the past. In February of 2023, I got COVID for the first time and it kicked my ass. I was down for the count for weeks without being able to work, to parent, or to be a good partner to my amazing husband. The fear of not being able to do things for everyone else go the best of me and compounded my illness, prolonging my symptoms. After a few months I was able to get back to work but before I could heal, I had to let go of my attachments to everything I held dear – to my career and to the family I’d build. I had to allow the universe to do with me as it was going to do because trying to fight it was keeping me sick. I ended up with long-COVID and chronic fatigue, waking up each morning feeling like I hadn’t slept. I had to learn to live my life, continue a demanding career, and raise a young family without any gas in the tank. Activities that required exertion like exercise and new hobbies took a back seat.
Long-COVID spurred on a new level of self-care and deepened relationship with self. Once again I had to consciously give myself permission to slow down and be selfish. In August of 2023 I had a discussion with my boss, a physician I very much admired for many years but recognized I was undervalued by. Though I was able to show the amount of revenue I brought in from patient visits as a physician assistant exceeded that of my physician employer, he was not willing to change the way we practiced or improve my compensation commensurate with my experience with him over time. Because I knew my value and had vowed to advocate for myself as I’d done so well for others, I recognized working for someone else, even someone else that I greatly respected and even enjoyed as a person, was of diminishing return. As I lay awake one evening, potty training a new puppy, I had the thought that perhaps a physician assistant could run their own medical practice in California. I would research this idea into the wee hours of the morning and thus an entrepreneur was born in me. Less than a year, I would open doors to my baby, Prospera Internal Medicine & Aesthetics, a physician assistant owned and operated medical practice (with physician oversight as required in the state of California). My business is all cash as I have seen, practice after practice, how insurance companies mistreat patients and providers to drive their own profit.
Though entrepreneurship has challenged my ideas of self-care and stretched my natural resourced thin again, I am now doing it by myself, for myself and in my own way. I’ve shown that I can do it slower, and smarter, than the physicians that taught me excellence in my career. I’ve set up a manageable schedule which would never be possible as a typical insurance dependent primary care private practice. I mentor my patients on healthy lifestyle in terms of reducing stress, eating a health diet, and prioritizing exercise and mental health. Instead of living on a hampster wheel of revolving sick patients every 15 minutes, I am able to capture patients earlier and make a positive impact before chronic illness sets in.
Being a physician assistant in the way I feel benefits my patient population and community the greatest brings me great joy. I make an effort to slow down, take care of myself, and work smarter rather than harder each day. I prioritize joy and quality of life and attract others that do the same. I am deeply honored to play the role that I do in the lives of individuals I treat and in my community. All while exemplifying self-love and self-care.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I have been a physician associate (PA) for over 15 years now and opened my medical practice, Prospera Internal Medicine & Aesthetics, in June of this year. Prospera is located in the community where I live in University Heights and focuses on inclusive care. We specialize in Direct Primary Care and Medical Aesthetics. Direct Primary Care (DPC) is a novel membership-based payment model for primary care providers which eliminates insurance company as the for-profit middle man. This enables the provider to spend more time with the patient and spend time on what the patient and provider decide is most helpful. Because medical insurance companies will only pay for a preventive code once per year (the physical exam), any other medical visit throughout the year must be justified with a symptom, acute illness, or chronic illness. Providers can’t offer weight loss counseling or nutritional counseling and get paid for their time through a patient’s health insurance. Because of this paradigm, the vast majority of primary care providers and primary care offices are disease-focused as this is what the insurance will pay for.
By eliminating dependence upon the health insurance company, I’m able to spend my time helping the patient in the way that is most helpful to them, whether that’s counseling on lifestyle, helping them navigate the challenging health care environment, or attempting to reverse chronic illness. The tools that I use to advocate for my patients are more comprehensive and meaningful with DPC.
On the medical aesthetics side, we do injectable neurotoxins, injectable fillers and biostimulants, plus we have a host of lasers and energy based devices to help you your appearance match the youthfulness you feel inside. Ask us about our vaginal laser for post-menopausal urinary and vaginal symptoms. DPC members receive a discount on medical aesthetic services as well and free laser hair removal is included for all trans women! Prospera is proud to offer community based inclusive care with a focus on prevention and wellness.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The 3 areas of medicine that I excel in stem from my passion for helping these communities – Women’s health, LGBTQ+ health, and skin health. As a pre-PA I acquired the majority of my patient care hours working in Oakland at a non-profit grass roots women’s health and abortion clinic which helped teach me the health care discrepancies and biases women face in health care.
As a member of the LGBTQ+ community myself, I wanted to provide a safe place for people of all genders and sexualities for their primary care and sexual health needs. I also prioritized being of service to the transgender community, and in particular transgender women who are most likely to abused because of their physical appearance. Hair removal is of critical importance for many trans women but is not covered by most commercial health insurance plans. To help fill this need, I purchased a laser hair removal device for Prospera solely to aid this community so we offer it free with DPC membership for trans women.
Because I’ve worked in dermatology previously in my career and because my father died of melanoma during the pandemic, I am obsessed with mentoring others in their skin health journey. I’m passionate in skin cancer prevention and maintaining skin youthfulness.
As a PA, I am always mentoring pre-PAs, allowing shadowing opportunities and writing letter of recommendation for the next generation of PAs. I am thrilled to be hosting Prospera’s first PA student in clinical rotations in 2025 and hope to hire a another PA someday.
I believe someone’s career should be a reflection of their passions in a role that brings them joy and nourishes the community they serve in.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Collaborating with others in my community is a huge passion, whether it be to mentor patient in healthy lifestyle choices or collaborating with other professionals that can help our patients live their best lives. I’m looking to begin offering regular classes at Prospera in other integrative topics such as mindfulness meditation, laughter yoga, plant-based diet, pilates, yoga, physical fitness, and beyond. I’d love to connect with other providers of complimentary and alternative health care therapies that could be of benefit to the Prospera health community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://prosperaima.com
• Instagram: @prospera.im.aesthetics
• Facebook: prospera.im.aesthetics
• Linkedin: pa-lea-pace
• Twitter: @ProsperaIMA
• Yelp: prospera-internal-medicine-and-aesthetics-san-diego