Car­ol Quash

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, scrubs are worn by peo­ple in the med­ical pro­fes­sion. But Dr Ayan­na Miller, founder and CEO of Pro­fash­ion­al Scrubs, has tak­en her vi­sion for her prod­ucts be­yond the hos­pi­tal wards and the emer­gency rooms. Her styl­ish scrubs, footwear and ac­ces­sories have found their way in­to beau­ty sa­lons and oth­er spaces where its wear­ers need com­fort and dura­bil­i­ty be­cause they work long hours and move around a lot.

Miller, an emer­gency med­i­cine doc­tor based in Not­ting­hamshire in the UK, told the Busi­ness Guardian when she first start­ed the busi­ness five years ago, her tar­get mar­ket was med­ical pro­fes­sion­als. Even­tu­al­ly, she no­ticed a mar­ket out­side of that field and ex­pand­ed her reach to serve it. She said while most es­tab­lished scrub brands still fo­cus heav­i­ly on med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, her brand stands out be­cause it is in­clu­sive.

“My cus­tomers now in­clude beau­ty pro­fes­sion­als; those in the well­ness field and aes­thet­ic fields as well.”

Miller said be­fore she start­ed Pro­fash­ion­al Scrubs, own­ing and run­ning a busi­ness was nev­er a con­sid­er­a­tion, as she was ful­ly fo­cussed on her med­ical ca­reer.

“But be­ing a med­ical pro­fes­sion­al, the sys­tem can be quite drain­ing. It’s very high in­ten­si­ty, very de­mand­ing, and some­times it was a strug­gle just to get through the day.”

The 35-year-old knew she had to find a way to pre­vent burnout, and, as a woman who loves fash­ion, she leaned in­to the the­o­ry that the way in which a per­son looks af­fects their mood. She ap­plied that prin­ci­ple to her job.

“I de­cid­ed to be very in­ten­tion­al about my pre­sen­ta­tion at work, and I start­ed wear­ing nice scrubs. That re­al­ly helped me feel more mo­ti­vat­ed when I showed up at work,” and it spilled over in­to to her per­for­mance. When she no­ticed the im­pact that sim­ple act had on her, she start­ed or­der­ing scrubs from in­ter­na­tion­al es­tab­lished brands and re­selling them.

“And then when I saw the re­sponse to that, and the pos­i­tive feed­back that I got, I de­cid­ed that I would launch my own brand. I got some­one to sketch my de­signs, and start­ed man­u­fac­tur­ing my scrubs in Chi­na and ship­ping them in­to Trinidad,” re­quir­ing a start-up in­vest­ment of ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$50,000.

Pro­fash­ion­al Scrubs has a phys­i­cal store in St Ann’s, Port of Spain and is run by Miller’s par­ents, who are both di­rec­tors. Her broth­er, Shama­ki Miller, is an in­vestor. Her prod­ucts are al­so shipped to Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, Grena­da, St Vin­cent and St Lu­cia.

“I do all of the back-end man­ag­ing of the busi­ness and I re­cent­ly hired some­one to man­age the so­cial me­dia. I have a vir­tu­al as­sis­tant and an ac­coun­tant, and re­cent­ly al­so brought on a sup­ply chain man­ag­er.”

Among her biggest chal­lenges are bal­anc­ing her med­ical ca­reer and build­ing a busi­ness, and find­ing ways to deal with the forex short­age.

“My busi­ness is not just like a side hus­tle that I just check in with every now and then. I’m ac­tu­al­ly build­ing an in­ten­tion­al, scal­able brand that is func­tion­al and sus­tain­able while work­ing full-time as a doc­tor.”

This chal­lenge was mul­ti­plied when she left T&T for the UK in 2022, forc­ing her to learn prop­er time man­age­ment and how to del­e­gate.

Miller had lived in the UK for two years while study­ing, re­turned to T&T for her in­tern­ship, worked for four years at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex and one year at the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty be­fore re­turn­ing to the UK to ad­vance her med­ical ca­reer.

“In terms of the forex short­age, it’s def­i­nite­ly been one of the more chal­leng­ing as­pects of do­ing busi­ness in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We’ve had to be very strate­gic with plan­ning in­ven­to­ry well in ad­vance, build­ing strong re­la­tion­ships with our sup­pli­ers, and some­times ex­plor­ing al­ter­na­tive pay­ment meth­ods or phased pay­ments to se­cure stock. It has forced us to be­come more proac­tive and dis­ci­plined in how we man­age our sup­ply chain.”

She said an­oth­er fac­tor that has been very help­ful was get­ting a men­tor who helped her nav­i­gate the busi­ness world, as she had no busi­ness back­ground when she start­ed. Build­ing her brand meant do­ing in­de­pen­dent re­search, and cours­es in busi­ness man­age­ment, ac­count­ing and lead­er­ship.

The com­pa­ny re­lies heav­i­ly on its so­cial me­dia plat­forms to mar­ket its prod­ucts, as well as the tried-and-true word-of-mouth strat­e­gy to make its mark on the lo­cal mar­ket. Miller is de­ter­mined to make her brand a re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al name, even if it means scal­ing back on her med­ical pro­fes­sion.

“I see my­self in the fu­ture go­ing deep­er in­to the busi­ness; tran­si­tion­ing a bit to not be­ing full-time in med­i­cine.”

And she al­so has a keen in­ter­est in women em­pow­er­ment and en­cour­ag­ing young women to choose more for them­selves, and to be bold enough to go af­ter their dreams.

“I’ve re­cent­ly host­ed a women’s em­pow­er­ment event in the UK, and I just want to pos­si­bly men­tor oth­er as­pir­ing or young en­tre­pre­neurs to build busi­ness­es.”