HOST: Welcome to Confidence to Thrive, the podcast helping growing practitioners and healthcare entrepreneurs navigate the challenges and risks of regulation whilst building brands that matter. Every episode, we tackle a different issue facing healthcare practitioners or entrepreneurs, or we interview a guest who is working on the leading edge of private healthcare, building something that matters in their sector or profession.

On today's episode, Christopher Cloke Browne, director at Owlicity, speaks to Dr. Angela Musso, a medical doctor and expert in regenerative and aesthetic medicine. With over 25 years of international medical experience, Dr. Musso's work focuses on restoring cellular function, improving microcirculation, and supporting the body's natural regenerative capacity, combining medical expertise with a personalised patient-centred approach.

Let's join Christopher and Dr. Musso for the discussion.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: So thank you very much, Dr. Angela Musso, for joining the podcast. If we could start with—if you could tell us what is your business and what was your journey to where you are now?

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: My business currently is a boutique regenerative medicine clinic, which includes quite a bit of aesthetic regenerative aesthetics and longevity medicine. It took me quite some time to get where I am right now. So I am, you might say, an international GP. I finished my university training. I've been a doctor for 25 years and I qualified as a GP in the Norfolk area. I worked mostly as a locum. I did some salaried posts. However, I then moved to—no, New Zealand first, sorry.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Good.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: I did have exposure to New Zealand. Then, shortly after, I moved to Australia, which I spent two and a half years in. It was very good, but right now what I'm doing—because I've actually worked quite a lot with skin, we had a skin clinic, which is quite common in Australia because of significant exposure to the sun and skin cancer risk.

However, that's not the only thing. It's not only exposure to the sun, because we need some sun for vitamin D, which is important. It's also what food and things we use that cause an effect on our body generally. Everybody can have the same sun exposure, but one person will develop cancer and another won't, and there is a reason why.

And that's what being a GP for quite some time taught me. I actually started working as a GP in prison when I finished my training.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Oh, gosh.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: I did have exposure in prison. I worked for the police. I was a sexual offence examiner at one point. So I went through quite a bit—it was concurrent when I was training as a GP, actually. I was doing that job as well.

So, moving to Australia—sorry, you can see my ADHD brain doing too many things at too many times, creating things or whatever is happening. I came back to England. I just decided I had had enough exposure. I wanted to do something else, and there were some things I didn't like in the medical system. When something doesn't sit with you—I don't know. People always ask me, "Why did you come back from Australia?" But it wasn't for me. I found out that it's difficult to assess some of the medical care systems there, for example, for psychiatric issues, and it was difficult for me to see that.

I realised why I came into medicine, and medicine shouldn't be that expensive or—in some countries, it just shouldn't be. It's a caring profession, isn't it? Integrity is very important to me. Hence the next chapter of my life, which happened because of my integrity. I have been a whistleblower when I saw something wasn't right.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Yes. Unfortunately, then you get prosecuted for that.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: No. Trying to get the right thing done can be very difficult.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: It was so difficult. Yeah. And when I came back to the UK, it was actually the most difficult time in my life. It started from that moment. So I decided to go to London and do a few things. I started working for Public Health England, so there were a lot of other things where I had to stand up with my integrity, and hence it led me to difficult legal battles and such, which affected my health.

Yeah. Hence why I'm coming to this. What I've realised whilst going through this is that I love my job as a GP because it's given me so much exposure. I've got to find out what's going on and not just treat symptoms, but actually treat the root cause, and maybe prevent things happening. Lifestyle changing, longevity, looking beautiful—that whole aspect affects you, and you manifest better things in your life.

And nobody talks about chronic stress and how it affects people. When I lived through that chronic stress and burnout, I was researching mitochondria exercises, just to get myself better. Basically, through getting myself better, because it involves so many aspects. The mind is quite important, which we ignore quite a bit. And we also ignore a lot of trauma. That's very important in one's healing journey because until you deal with it, you don't live happily. And happiness is longevity.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: What you're telling me is a story I hear many times from practitioners like you, and it generally starts with themselves and their own journey. Yeah, and that maybe leads us on to what I think you've already touched upon. But could you expand on the next question: what impact do you hope to have on your sector, market, or profession?

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Making people look beautiful, healthy, and happier. Yeah, it's general, but everybody thinks it's quite expensive or that you have to do something special. But it isn't. The sun is free. Exercise outside is free. Nature is free. Discipline—sometimes you just need to be told. You go to a professional even to be told that you need to sleep more or eat specific things. I know because I've done it myself. We advise people on something, and in fact, I had experiences a couple of days ago where I advised people about something I forgot to do for myself.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: It is important. Awareness is the first thing, and sometimes you have to go to a professional to get that awareness. So I help from that sort of perspective—like holistic advice to help them live longer. And also currently, because I'm studying all the peptides and what's new in our industry right now—the peptides, all the supplements which help your mitochondrial health—and I implement exercise and follow the new studies. Dr. David Sinclair, I love his work and his various roles. And a man because I've tried everything on myself, too. Yeah. It has to be that way. Maybe that's why I can appreciate what a patient is going through because I've been through it myself.

Those experiences matter. And when I treat patients, they see different ways. Authenticity, isn't it? I'm not just talking because I've studied something in a book. I'm actually not only seeing it in my patients—I've experienced it myself and healed myself.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: I think the experience is important. And I've had a little bit of experience of dealing with hard times and trauma and that sort of thing, and to me it's so personalised. What somebody needs is different to each person and different to the same person as circumstances change. And it's a really personalised thing.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: It's so important. I can recognise trauma straight away because I've been through it. But what's good is that I'm bringing my GP skills. I can refer people to those who actually deal with trauma quite well. Right? Because, aesthetically, because of my past interest in skin, I was previously interested in doing Botox, fillers, and non-surgical facelifts.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: I left that because, studying more what that can do to your body, there isn't enough research.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: And I chose to go to the regenerative aesthetic way—which is using your own plasma to regenerate.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: And that comes with understanding the whole picture. It's not just superficial. People need to look after their gut, and—

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: We're going through trauma because, actually, you're so right. It's related because skin shows what's going on with your gut and your body, and your gut actually reacts to what happened to you in the past. If you didn't deal with that, lots of women are developing autoimmune diseases and all this inflammation is because they suppressed their emotions and didn't deal with trauma. The same has happened to men. It's not just—I'm experiencing this from myself, and I'm explaining how I found out what was actually suppressing me. And it's good to have a good professional too, who understands this trauma.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah, no, absolutely. It's such an important development. I would agree. And it's interesting how it's grown out of the beauty industry and, as you say, the beauty industry's progressed from this sort of surface fixing to actually trying to fix the underlying issues, which go all the way down through health issues and then through the underlying, more mental and psychological trauma issues that even drive those health issues.

And I would say that there have been, to be fair, people talking about this stuff for decades, but it's been a very small community that's been largely ignored for decades. And now it's—

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: I know.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: now it's really catching the mainstream, and I think it's going to be a really interesting time in overall health and wellbeing for people.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Do you think it's catching up with the mainstream? Because my ideas sometimes in a GP practice have been treated very interestingly.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Oh, yeah. No. In fact, question three is: what do you see as the biggest challenge in your market right now? So let's pick up on that and put it into question three. It depends very much on which bit of the mainstream.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Yeah.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: So there are doctors in the mainstream who are completely bought in, completely understand it, and would love to see it in the mainstream. There are doctors like you who completely believe in it and want it in the mainstream. And there are doctors who've been through the mainstream who think that you are straight out mad, and that this is non-medical and in fact, probably worse than witch doctor-y and heresy. You have the complete mix at the moment.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Yes.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: And certainly, our observation is that you have to tread quite carefully because there are a number of people who really fundamentally do not believe in what you're doing. And again, because you're a GP—

My own experience of sitting in some of the regenerative and functional medicine discussions is, I sat in at a Nordic Labs London conference in October last year. The level of conversation there—and I don't even have O-level biology, so let me put my knowledge level into perspective. But as far as I could tell, and people did agree, the level of conversation was at a post-graduate biochemistry level. It was enormously sophisticated, analytical, clever, and detailed—stuff that, to be honest, isn't actually taught in mainstream medical school. It's above and beyond that. But a mainstream doctor will look at this stuff and just say, "You're a GP. You can't possibly understand that." You're not a GP. You're somebody who's trained in all these really complicated, really difficult ideas and started to make sense of them. And it's delivering results for people. That's what I see.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Yes, but unfortunately, you're so right. You picked that up quite correctly. This is the difficulty. And finding people who understand this is coming with marketing difficulties right now because people are unaware. And sometimes I'm not sure how much they're unaware.

And I start seeing it when I do my locum GP work, because I still practise to keep my licence. I do like my job, I must admit. It's interesting because every day you find something new, and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I need to go and research that." Because every day something new is happening, and it's interesting.

But I'm not going into the difficulties of the job because you get the burnout of it. All that negativity—we have to understand. You know, if you're picking up this and you're an empath, you're living with them, and your energy—it's important to protect yourself as well because things can happen in your life too.

So it was a learning experience for me. Just even if you love something, that doesn't mean your boundaries don't matter. It is important to look after yourself. That's what we haven't been taught in medical school either. I don't think it's been promoted anywhere in the world that it's important to look after yourself.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah. No, it's been very much off the agenda for many years. And it's interesting watching a quite interesting TV series at the moment about the making of industrial America, and wow, that was just brutal.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: The suppression. Suppression of all the emotions. Do you imagine what sort of traumatised people are going to come after that, and then that will pass on to their kids.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yes. That's the big factor, isn't it? And this stuff rattles through generations. Once you've done it to one generation, then it perpetuates. And it's very hard to break that cycle.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Yeah. You need to work on yourself. You need to have actual discipline to break that cycle, and it takes time, it takes guts, it takes bravery. It's not a light journey, I must admit.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: No. So now we're going to be positive and look at the next question: what needs to change to help overcome this? So how are practitioners such as yourself going to get the word out and get this sort of new view of the world out there and accepted?

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: I think it's already happening. Social media, there are a lot of things out there. Before that, when I was talking about it, literally nobody on social media was talking about it. And I was scared even to get my opinions out because I've been cancelled.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Yes. So you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I'm like, "Oh, do I even want to put this out there?" I've been cancelled so many times. It's tiring. It's like a trauma repeating itself because it feels like, from my childhood, I've been cancelled most of the time. You know, when there's somebody who cannot tolerate your light or something they don't want to deal with inside them, and unfortunately the projection happens. But that's a major trauma for lots of people, too. Yes. It's very important to understand that.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah. No, that's—as you say—and I would just to put it in a positive light now, I agree. And so, how long do you think there's been this sort of more positive, more accepting, more open point of view? If you go back a few years and tried to talk about some of this stuff on social media, you'd be lucky if people just ignored you.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: I know. But there is a lot of stuff happening. I think it moves quickly, and increasingly so every time. Even when I go on social media and when I put my videos, there seems to be more understanding. Yeah. However, my videos are actually my own way to not put my light down. It was my healing experience as well. When you're always suppressed, coming from some sort of background, and then as a woman in medicine, in the NHS, they still don't treat women quite well.

I can go through that suppression. I've seen, in and out, what exactly happens in institutions and how hard it can be for vulnerable people. And how you have to become like a man to get by as a woman. But all the positive stuff from that journey has made me who I am, so nothing phases me right now.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: No.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: So I trust the plan.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: That's great. Yeah, no, I would just say, in my view, it's probably about two years that you've really started to see a lot of people come out and really talk about this stuff. And probably more recently than that is when so many more things are being accepted—the whole sort of brain-gut axis, and—

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Oh, yes. Finally.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah. And mental health and physical health, and so on. And it's fascinating, isn't it? Even one of our clients is struggling at the moment because they used to be one of the leading bariatric surgery businesses in the world, but modern medications are rapidly changing their business model.

But to the credit of the two surgeons who set that up, even back in the early 2000s, they were absolutely adamant that obesity was a disease and completely rejected this notion that it was people with no self-control and all that kind of issue. So it was definitely there, but it's only really in the last year or 18 months that you can very safely express that opinion.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Not only that, it's also about chronic stress. Because everything to do with chronic stress—it doesn't even come down to just the chronic stress you're going through. It's childhood trauma or even in utero. If your mother was going through stressful issues, it will affect you.

That's why some people when diagnosed with ADHD—it's actually fear, it's a survival fear, which makes them operate on a different level. If you've ever listened to Dr. Gabor Maté, he's a family physician like I am, but he was dealing with trauma, and he's so kind. I think people just maybe need that.

And then he lived through it himself. He had that ADHD. He had that fear. He understands people, and his explanation was amazing. And then I went a little bit further, investigating the amygdala and what's exactly happening in the brain. Same as with Dr. Joe Dispenza. With his meditation and how you have the ability to heal yourself. And I've included that meditation in my practice, and I'm just telling my patients that simple things like that can change their life, actually.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's the fascinating part of a lot of what practitioners like you do—how what would seem like relatively simple things, which certainly have nothing to do with large bottles of pills that cost a fortune, can be so transformative.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Yeah. Yeah. And even somebody just holding space and listening to the story could be healing for them—somebody heard their story. I actually did that once. I went to my GP, and that lady listened to my story. That was my healing. Because I've actually used mainstream too. I spoke to somebody. And obviously, I did use other approaches. I used spiritual healers. Their words are quite nice. So understanding every part can help you. But the most important thing—and I'm agreeing with Dr. Joe Dispenza actually—is changing your personality and changing yourself. Self-discipline is the highest form of self-love. That's the point. It's changing yourself to the point where your thoughts become more positive, and then you can actually manifest so much positivity in your life just because you're changing the way you think.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yes. Yes. But it's interesting, isn't it? And it goes completely away from the current sort of NHS GP work.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Yes.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: We might just leave it there on that one. But what you're saying—and this is all part of maybe what sort of NHS GPs are struggling with—is that fundamentally, all GPs to some extent are a little bit of a psychiatrist, aren't they?

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: I would say yes. Not a little bit, quite a bit. Yeah. There's a lot of psychology involved in seeing the patients, how they are, listening to their story. It's about being listened to. That's what people are lacking. And to come to the realisation that the only person you need to listen to is yourself.

It's a journey because we all have some sort of programming, some sort of brainwashing, some sort of institution telling us this is not right or you know the score.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: No, I do. I do. Yes. So shall we round it off with some great positivity in terms of what do you see as your biggest opportunity?

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Oh, my biggest opportunity. For myself, it's probably bigger places. So I'm going to move to London. I think that's what's going to be more—I see people more interested there with natural things and regenerative longevity. And with my aesthetic eye, I think that will give me quite a bit of expansion. And also to actually have people that I trust and other health professionals so we can collaborate in that way.

Because I usually advise patients to see somebody or take something which I would take myself. So integrity is the most important thing right now in business as well, so you trust those connections. That would be my opportunity for the next expansion and good business contacts.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Well—

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: With people I trust.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: No, absolutely. And I think also having the other practitioners, isn't it? Because it's interesting—there are so many different aspects. The best practices that we see in this kind of space have a lot of different people. They'll have a nutritionist, they'll have a GP, they'll have a psychiatrist, psychologist. They'll have a few other bits and pieces, and there's an awful lot of pieces to the puzzle, I think, is what we find.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Absolutely. And it's good to spend time on yourself. It's another form of self-love and see professionals who can actually help you and guide you.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Yeah.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: That's another thing.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: Perfect. Wishing you every success with that.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Thank you so much.

CHRISTOPHER CLOKE BROWNE: And thanks for sharing your story.

DR. ANGELA MUSSO: Thank you.

HOST: Thank you for listening to Confidence to Thrive. Before you go, please rate, review, and subscribe to Confidence to Thrive on your preferred podcast platform and help us spread our message to others who are making a difference in private healthcare.

This podcast was brought to you by Owlicity Insurance Advisors, who support your business ambitions. Owlicity advises practitioners, owners, and entrepreneurs of healthcare practices on mitigating risks so your business can thrive. Learn more about how Owlicity can support you by finding the link in the show notes or visiting owlicity.co.uk.