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

Vini, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

A Defining Moment: What the COVID Frontlines Taught Me About Living Longer

For nearly five years, I practiced medicine the way I was trained—diagnose, treat, stabilize, repeat. Then COVID hit, and the hospital became a battleground. I spent two years caring for patients who were fighting not just a virus, but often decades of unaddressed health issues that suddenly became life-threatening.

I can still picture the night that changed me. I had just lost a patient I had cared for since admission. He was young, but his body was fragile—diabetes, hypertension, chronic inflammation. COVID didn’t create those conditions, but it magnified them in the cruelest way. I sat at the nurses’ station, N95 still imprinted on my face, replaying his labs, his scans, his last moments. And one thought kept echoing in my heart:

If only we had gotten to him earlier.

That single sentence broke me open—and it also became my defining moment.

In that quiet, exhausted pause between crises, I saw the truth: much of what I treated in the hospital was preventable. COVID showed me the limits of reactive medicine and the immense possibility of proactive health. I realized that optimizing someone’s lifestyle, metabolic health, and resilience wasn’t optional—it could be lifesaving.

So I made the hardest—and most meaningful—decision of my career: to pivot into longevity and aesthetic medicine.

Some assumed I was leaving “real medicine.” But to me, this was medicine at its most real. Longevity focuses on slowing aging, preventing disease, and strengthening the very systems that failed so many during the pandemic. Aesthetics, often misunderstood, can reignite confidence—one of the most powerful motivators for healthier living.

Now my work is rooted in early intervention, optimization, and empowerment. I help patients take control long before illness forces its way in. Every consultation, every treatment, every lifestyle plan is shaped by the faces I cared for during those two years—people I will never forget.

My defining moment came during the darkest days of COVID, but it gave me a new mission: to help others live longer, stronger, and healthier lives. Not just to survive, but to truly thrive.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a board-certified physician who spent nearly five years in hospital medicine, including two years treating COVID patients on the frontlines. Witnessing how deeply chronic conditions and lifestyle factors affected outcomes inspired me to shift into longevity and aesthetic medicine. Today, I combine evidence-based internal medicine with advanced longevity tools and aesthetic treatments to help clients optimize their health, confidence, and overall well-being. My mission is prevention—empowering people to feel and function better long before illness appears. I’m most proud of creating a practice where clients feel seen, supported, and guided toward living healthier, longer, and more confident lives.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

Beyond medical training, the most important qualities in longevity and aesthetic medicine are empathy, curiosity, and the ability to truly listen. Patients don’t just come to me for treatments—they come to feel understood, supported, and guided. Taking the time to learn their stories and their fears allows me to create care plans that genuinely change their lives.

Adaptability has also been essential. My experience during the COVID pandemic taught me how quickly the world can shift and how vital it is to stay open-minded, resilient, and willing to evolve with new information. In a field growing as rapidly as longevity medicine, success depends on being both a scientist and a lifelong learner.

But above all, passion is what sustains me. When you genuinely believe in prevention, healing, and helping people live longer, healthier, more confident lives, that passion shows—and it inspires trust. At the heart of it, success in this field comes from combining skill with compassion and remembering that every person we treat is seeking not just improvement, but hope.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

My most powerful growth strategy has been cultivating trust through an elevated, deeply personalized patient experience. Longevity and aesthetic medicine require a level of care where clients feel truly seen, heard, and guided. As clients begin to look and feel their best—physically, emotionally, and metabolically—the transformation becomes visible to those around them. That authenticity fuels remarkable word-of-mouth growth. Rather than traditional marketing, my practice grows through connection, education, and the kind of results that inspire clients to proudly share their journey with others.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://zivawellnessmd.com
• Instagram: zivawellnessmd
• Facebook: Ziva Wellness MD