The cosmetic medicine doctor is currently living between her home and work in Auckland and a new home with her husband Rob Leslie.
The Mangawhai Heads house came with a studio, which they are renovating to base her practice from.
“Whenever I come home to Mangawhai I feel like I’m on holiday. It’s so much more relaxed and I would love to spend more time here,” Michele says.
She says the studio in Albert Street is perfect as it is private, looks out over the estuary and has a peaceful view.
Setting it up has consumed their spare time in the past year, but she has enjoyed the creativity. Michele says she picked up her creative eye from her father, who was an architect.
She sees her work, which is non-surgical appearance medicine, as creative and a way of enhancing a person’s beauty. She has a special interest in botulinum toxin and dermal filler injections.
“You can make subtle changes that make a big difference to how people feel and look. It’s very rewarding and it doesn’t feel like work.”
Michele moved into her field after extensive medical training in Johannesburg, including two years of forensic pathology, two years of paediatrics and two years at hospice while working in South Africa. Since moving to NZ in 1993, she has practised as a general practitioner on Auckland’s North Shore.
Since 1998, she has focused on appearance medicine and is a Diplomate of the New Zealand Society of Cosmetic Medicine.
