Faculty · Founder
The founder.
Dr. Cecilia Rusnak teaches every credential awarded by the Academy. The discipline she practises is the discipline she teaches: in real clinical conditions, on live cases, with technique corrected in the room.
Teaching philosophy
Five tenets that shape the curriculum.
The discipline is medical-adjacent. Teach it that way.
Paramedical tattooing is not an aesthetic trade. The Academy's curriculum treats it as a clinical discipline, with the documentation standards, the regulatory awareness and the patient-context gravity of medical work. Technique is taught alongside compliance. Compliance is taught alongside patient communication. None of the three is optional.
Training happens on live cases.
The Academy does not train on rubber skin, on practice pads or on cadaver tissue alone. Every credential includes supervised practice on volunteer models: live human skin, real lighting, real tissue variability, real consequences. Candidates leave with the muscle memory of working under realistic conditions.
Correction in the room, not after the fact.
Instruction means real-time feedback during the work, not a video review afterward. When a candidate's needle angle is wrong, the correction happens before the next stroke. When colour selection is misjudged, the candidate sees the error in the chair and adjusts. This is how Dr. Rusnak was trained, and how she trains the next generation.
The standard is the standard.
Every candidate receives the manual before class and is quizzed on it. In the room, technique is practised on live models under direct supervision and corrected in real time. The Certificate of Advanced Professional Training is awarded on completion of the training; candidates who have not yet met the standard are invited to continue training until they have.
The patient is the standard.
Every teaching decision routes back to the patient who will eventually sit in the candidate's chair. Will this practitioner read tissue conditions correctly? Hold the consultation with the gravity the work deserves? Document the case at a medical-grade standard? The Academy's test is not whether the candidate worked hard. It is whether Dr. Rusnak would refer a member of her own family to them.
The clinical lineage
Thirty-two years, four institutions, one discipline.
The foundation
Florida College of Integrative Medicine
Bachelor of Professional Health Studies. Master of Science in Oriental Medicine. The academic foundation of clinical practice.
Clinical internship
Yunnan University of TCM
Internal medicine internship at Kunming Yuan An Hospital. Specialisation in tongue and pulse diagnosis.
Paramedical aesthetics
Florida College of Natural Health
Associate degree in paramedical aesthetics. The formal training behind the twelve paramedical certifications that followed.
The doctorate
Pacific College of Health and Science
Doctor of Acupuncture, San Diego. The clinical-doctorate credential that anchors the Academy's authority in integrative medical practice.
One instructor, two formats
Clinical credentials in person, billing online.
Same instructor. Same standard. Two formats: in-person clinical intensives in Orlando, New York, Houston and Las Vegas, and Dr. Rusnak Academy online programs. The credential awarded in either format carries the same authority, and every certificate is signed by Dr. Rusnak herself.
- Assessment conducted personally by Dr. Rusnak
- Manual and quiz before every class
- Live models in every in-person track
- Lifetime mentorship with the two tattoo credentials
Begin
The discipline she practises is the discipline she teaches.
Every credential awarded by Dr. Rusnak Academy is taught directly by Dr. Cecilia Rusnak.