ADRIAN — “Somewhere in sixth grade I failed to make the Little League cut. So there went my dream of replacing Al Kaline in right field.”

And so, with professional baseball not in the cards for him, Lawrence Desjarlais set a goal of going to medical school — a path that eventually led him to start an Adrian dermatology practice, Desjarlais Dermatology and Aesthetic Center, that’s now marking its 30th anniversary.

Desjarlais, a Detroit native, graduated from Bishop Borgess High School and went on to the University of Michigan Honors College, earning his Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry in 1984. He then spent three years doing research in the university’s School of Dermatology, but even so, becoming a dermatologist wasn’t what he envisioned at that point.

At Chicago’s Loyola Stritch School of Medicine, he narrowed his preference for a specialty down to either emergency medicine or dermatology, chose the latter, and after graduation his prior years of research at U of M opened the door for him to return there to become a dermatology resident.

“It’s a very rewarding specialty,” he said, “because what other specialty gets to see virtually every aspect of the body organ [the skin] you’re working with?” 

He chose to come to Adrian in 1994 to open his practice, now located at 2000 Curtis Road, because the community needed a dermatologist. Today, he said, he is the only board-certified medical dermatologist based in Lenawee County.

His patients come from all over Lenawee as well as from Hillsdale and Jackson counties. Many of his new patients come thanks to referrals from family or friends “saying, ‘You’ve got to go see this guy,’ ” he said.

The medical part of Desjarlais’ practice involves treating conditions including skin cancer, acne, eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, spider veins, and warts. The Aesthetic Center, which opened in 2017, handles a wide range of procedures, such as laser hair and tattoo removal, Botox treatments, body contouring, facials, and much more.

The practice also offers laser treatments for certain women’s issues such as incontinence.

While Desjarlais uses many traditional treatments in his practice, “we’re very in tune with all the FDA-approved treatments,” he said. The most specialized treatment the practice does is superficial radiation, which treats basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas with almost no scarring.

Treatments have changed significantly over Desjarlais’ 30 years as a dermatologist, perhaps most notably in the area of lasers. 

When he first started using these devices in 1996, “there were really only two laser treatments out there,” he said, and they had pretty limited uses, such as doing skin peels and treating what are called port wine stains.

But these days, “new lasers come out all the time,” he said, and are used for more types of procedures while being better able now to safely deliver the energy to where it’s needed and produce the desired results with less pain.

The cosmetic-dermatology field has also expanded greatly over the years, in large part because “soclal media has made perfection an ideal,” he said. And today it’s not just women who avail themselves of cosmetic procedures. “It’s becoming acceptable for men to dabble,” mostly by having body hair or age spots removed or getting some Botox to deal with facial lines.

Desjarlais most recently added a procedure called microneedling to his practice. Microneedles, which are either “cold” or “hot,” create small punctures in the skin to help stimulate healing of certain dermatologic medical or cosmetic conditions.

His work extends to training other practitioners in the use of lasers, participating in clinical research studies, consulting with local physicians, assisting with continuing education, and more.

“I’m passionate about what I do,” he said, because of the many ways he can help people on both the medical and cosmetic sides of his practice.

Treating patients’ unsightly and often physically uncomfortable skin conditions such as acne and eczema means “you’re making their lives easier and better,” and on the cosmetic side he gets to see “the evolution of patients’ self-esteem when they see the improvement that can be accomplished.”

Desjarlais Dermatology and Aesthetic Center’s medical dermatology hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, and 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday. Cosmetic dermatology hours are 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday.

Contact the office at 517-264-5603 (medical dermatology) or 517-759-3191 (cosmetic dermatology), or via the practice’s website, www.drdesjarlais.com, or Facebook page.