Who is Dr. Stefannia Ezzi: from the ICU to humanistic aesthetic medicine in Orlando

When someone walks into EZ Aesthetics & Wellness for the first time, they may notice the conversation begins differently. Before any procedure, before any treatment suggestion, there is a genuine question: how are you? Not as a protocol. As a real starting point.

That has everything to do with who Dr. Stefannia Ezzi is, with the path she walked before opening the clinic, and with what that path taught her about what it means to care for someone.

A story that begins in the countryside of Espírito Santo

Stefannia grew up in Barra de São Francisco, a town of about 40,000 people in the interior of Espírito Santo, Brazil. She studied in public schools, started working as a teenager, and at 16 was admitted in first place to two different universities for a Business Administration degree in Vitória. The achievement made the local newspaper.

In Vitória, she worked as a secretary while paying for college, saved for months, and in December 2005 boarded a plane to Orlando on an exchange program. She brought 400 dollars in her pocket to survive on. She did not know what lay ahead. She knew she wanted more.

Orlando: arriving and starting over from zero

In her first months, she worked as a hotel housekeeper on International Drive, cleaning more than fifteen rooms a day. She learned English with a pocket mini-dictionary, and on her days off went to the public library to watch English-class DVDs. She was the housekeeper who received the most tips, even without speaking fluently.

That period shaped something that would stay with her forever: the ability to adapt, to work with whoever is around her, and to communicate beyond words. A skill that, years later, would save lives inside American ICUs.

The turning point: deciding to study nursing

In 2013, with a young daughter, a transportation business up and running, and her green card secured, Stefannia made a decision her husband Basem did not expect: she wanted to go back to school. Not to advance in the career she had, but to start a completely new one, in healthcare.

She studied while waiting for customers in the taxi line. She listened to class recordings while driving, while cleaning the house, while rocking her youngest daughter Claire, who was born during the prerequisite classes. There are photos from that time of her breastfeeding the baby surrounded by Anatomy books.

At one point, a professor asked sarcastically whether she really thought she could get into Nursing school. Of the 120 students who started the Nursing program, 53 finished. Stefannia was one of them.

The ICU and the Daisy Award

Graduating in 2017, she was recruited by the ICU director of her hospital within her first months. Not by chance. Because of the way she cared for people.

In 2018, she became responsible for a Brazilian patient named Roberto, an elderly man who had come to Orlando with his family to fulfill the dream of visiting Walt Disney World. He was admitted urgently, operated on for a brain hemorrhage, and never woke from the coma. Stefannia brought Mickey balloons to the room, played Disney movie songs during his bath, and called the family to translate the medical terms.

On November 8, 2018, her own birthday, she was off duty at a park when she learned that Roberto would be taken off life support and that the family would not be able to be there. She cut her outing short, returned to the hospital, and stayed by his side for hours, until he passed. The family was not there. She was.

Months later, she was summoned to a formal ceremony without knowing why. A nurse had nominated her for the Daisy Award, the nursing excellence prize from the DAISY Foundation, for that gesture. Her story was told to more than 300 healthcare professionals. Her voice broke, but she told it.

The family was not there. She was.

The pandemic: on the front lines in New York and Texas

In 2020, called up by FEMA to treat COVID-19 patients in Long Island, New York, Stefannia spent three months in an overwhelmed hospital, with inadequate ventilators, kitchen gloves in place of medical gloves, and garbage bags as gowns. She worked 60-hour weeks. She lost patients. She held the hand of those who no longer had family nearby.

She returned to Orlando, stayed a month, and was called up again, this time to Texas, where she spent several more months in a region bordering Mexico, treating Hispanic patients in Spanish, working 27 days straight without a day off. She finished her Master's in Family Medicine remotely, between shifts, in the early hours.

The PTSD she developed afterward was not a metaphor. It was a diagnosis. She needed psychological support to get back into her rhythm. She came back.

From the ICU to her own practice

In 2022, with her Master's completed and her Nurse Practitioner license in Florida, Stefannia began practicing aesthetic medicine, working in clinics around Orlando. It was during this period that the transition from the ICU to aesthetics surprised even her. There was a belief, which she admits she held, that aesthetics was something superficial. What she saw in her first appointments changed that. She saw patients leaving abusive relationships looking to recognize themselves in the mirror. People who cried with relief after a procedure. She saw what restored self-esteem does for someone who had lost touch with their own image.

In 2024, she took the next step: she opened EZ Aesthetics & Wellness, her own clinic in Orlando.

She understood that caring for life does not happen only inside a hospital.

The EZ Method and humanistic aesthetic medicine

The philosophy that guides the practice at EZ Aesthetics & Wellness has a name: Humanistic Aesthetic Medicine. And a method of its own: the EZ Method.

What that means in practice is that every clinical decision starts from who the patient is, not from a generic protocol. The consultation does not begin with the procedure the person wants. It begins with a conversation about what she feels, what bothers her, what she hopes for, what she fears. Only then comes the recommendation. Learn more about the EZ Method.

Stefannia treats patients in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. She holds a doctorate in Family Medicine from Michigan, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC. She completed the doctorate in one year, hidden from her family, working in the early hours. The diploma sat under the Christmas tree in 2022.

A professional trained within the American healthcare system

There is something that sets EZ Aesthetics & Wellness apart from much of the aesthetic clinic landscape in Orlando: the clinical training of the person who leads it was built inside the most demanding healthcare systems in the United States. Cardiac ICU, general ICU, the front line of a pandemic, a Master's and a doctorate in Family Medicine.

That background is not decorative. It shows in the way cases are evaluated, in the honesty about what a procedure can and cannot solve, in the rigor with which each recommendation is made. When Dr. Stefannia says she will not recommend a treatment, she means it.

Frequently asked questions

Does Dr. Stefannia treat patients who do not speak Portuguese?

Yes. Care is trilingual, in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. The clinic serves patients from across the Orlando community and the surrounding region.

Is EZ Aesthetics & Wellness a medical clinic or an aesthetic spa?

It is an aesthetic medicine clinic, led and operated by a doctorally prepared Nurse Practitioner, with every procedure performed under clinical judgment and preceded by an individual evaluation.

How do I book a consultation with Dr. Stefannia?

Through the website ezwellnessorlando.com or by WhatsApp. The first consultation is a clinical evaluation, with no obligation to undergo a procedure.

Where is Dr. Stefannia Ezzi's clinic located in Orlando?

EZ Aesthetics & Wellness is located at 7075 Kingspointe Pkwy, Unit 18, Orlando, FL 32819. Care is by appointment, through the website or WhatsApp.

Is Dr. Stefannia Ezzi Brazilian?

Yes. Dr. Stefannia Ezzi was born in Barra de São Francisco, in the interior of Espírito Santo, Brazil, and built her entire clinical training in the United States. She treats patients in Portuguese, English, and Spanish in Orlando.

Would you like to get to know the clinic and talk with Dr. Stefannia before any decision? Book an evaluation at EZ Aesthetics & Wellness in Orlando.