Dr. Aida Yavari, DO provides aesthetic treatments at Arktos.  As a physician provider, her goal is to always provide her patients with the best care and treatments available.  Below you can find out a little more about Dr. Yavari.

Q: Have you always wanted to become a doctor?

Dr. Aida Yavari:   In my early teens, I wavered back and forth between wanting to become a physician and wanting to become a teacher.  As a child, I followed my uncle around on the weekend when he would round on his patients at the hospital, in a time when that was so much more acceptable.  It was uplifting and exciting; people, relationships, curiosities, overhearing knowledge-swaps and patient stories. However, I had an even greater exposure to teaching.  Afterall, my mom was a teacher and I looked up to her with great admiration. I watched her bring the overwhelmed, math-phobic students to a place of ease in her tutoring sessions. I tailed her to work too, mostly when she was teaching evening classes at the community college. Witnessing her smile with her eyes as she presented a new topic to her students on the chalkboard, I looked around the room to see their eager and engaged faces.  My mom showed me that teaching gave her the greatest gift of lifelong-learning.

 

Q: When did you start to change your mind from becoming a teacher to becoming a physician?

Dr. Aida Yavari: We moved from Florida to California while I was in high school, and in trying to make new friends came new opportunities to “become”.  And so, I became a hospital volunteer, and an after-school tutor, and a transcriptionist for a psychiatrist. Back in the day before doctors typed vigorously during visits, they dictated their notes into a “dictaphone”.  It certainly makes me feel old to say it that way, but I digress. I didn’t know at the time that looking up so many medical terms would ever come around to be an advantage, but now I can effortlessly spell “anosognosia” so that’s pretty handy.  I became a decent swimmer at my small high school, played second-chair violin in the city’s youth orchestra, and scouted out at all things “fashion” any chance I could. I was navigating the waters of being really busy and really indecisive, where many teenagers may find themselves.

 

Q: When did the “aesthetic” interest begin?

Dr. Aida Yavari: The four years I spent at the University of California at Santa Barbara were impactful to say the least. I lived in, what I still think is, one of the most beautiful cities I’ve been to. I worked front-and-center at a ritzy hotel on the beach, where I tried to act totally normal that Tyra Banks was asking me for new key cards or that Michael Jordan was quietly signing kids’ basketball jerseys in the meeting room. In retrospect, Santa Barbara gave me insight that I liked the way people carried themselves when they felt good about how they looked. I saw what confidence can do to every aspect of a person- from the way they communicate to the cadence of their walk.

Undoubtedly, I spent a little more money on shoes and face cream, but I guess that’s forgivable. Afterall, that confidence I gained helped me land a pretty great position at a biopharmaceutical company called Amgen. My curiosities in scientific research and development was fed further, but my passion for patient-care became even more clear. In deciding on what kind of provider I wanted to become, I heavily studied the osteopathic philosophy. At the time, the initials “DO” were not as well-known. I was enthusiastic about the holistic approach to treating patients, and I knew it was a fit for me.

Q: Arktos is a unique fusion of skills that you and Dr. Hampton have created. How was this born?

Dr. Aida Yavari: Well, it wasn’t until after medical school in Kansas City, Missouri and residency in Long Beach, California, that I married my sweetheart, Kyle Hampton. We started our life in Florida to be near family, each working in private practice.  Eventually, our mutual love for the mountains led us to settle down in Colorado. We were (and still are) excited to raise our family here in Fort Collins. Here, I found my passion in community health care, where the art of medicine and the art of teaching blend together to educate, support, and heal patients. My passion for aesthetics, and the art of non-invasive procedures needed a place to grow and bloom. That is how my role at Arktos Direct Care was born. My devotion to patient wellness, whether in primary care or the confidence-building procedures of aesthetic medicine, is cultivated with passion. I am grateful for the opportunity to create authentic relationships with my patients, to always give my best and my most, and continually teach and be taught.