Tamara Lazic Strugar, MD, FAAD – Hudson Dermatology and Laser Surgery

In loving memory of Dr. Tamara Lazic Strugar

October 20, 1980 – April 1, 2026

It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Dr. Tamara Lazić Strugar. She was an exceptional physician, teacher, mother, and colleague whose life was marked by intelligence, courage, refinement, and deep humility.

Life and medical expertise

Dr. Lazić Strugar was a board-certified dermatologist, a Fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology, and an Associate Clinical Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She devoted her career to the care of patients and the education of future physicians, earning lasting respect for her excellence in dermatology, her academic rigor, and her rare ability to combine clinical precision with genuine compassion.

Her professional accomplishments were remarkable. She graduated summa cum laude from UCLA, earned her medical degree and completed her internship in internal medicine at Yale, completed her dermatology residency at Boston University’s Roger Williams Medical Center as Chief Resident, and later joined Mount Sinai, where she continued to teach, publish, and care for patients in New York City. She also pursued dermatology studies in Rome and HIV primary care training in Santiago, reflecting a physician whose curiosity and discipline were matched by a truly international outlook.

What made Dr. Lazic Strugar’s life unique was the path that shaped her long before her career in medicine. In her own words, she reflected on growing up in Belgrade during the civil war of the 1990s, in a world where identities and borders were becoming more rigid around her. Born to a Serbian mother and Croatian father, she understood from an early age the complexity of belonging, and she responded not by narrowing her world, but by widening it through language, learning, travel, and an instinctive refusal to accept smallness of mind or spirit.

She left her war-torn homeland for the United States at nineteen, carrying with her both the memory of Europe and the determination to build a life defined not by conflict, but by meaning. Science and medicine became her way of transcending borders: rigorous, universal, and deeply human. She was fluent in Serbian, English and Spanish conversational in Italian, and brought that cultural breadth into the way she learned, taught, and cared for others.

She was also the daughter of renowned photographer Jadran Lazić, and there is something fitting in that lineage: she seemed to understand, perhaps more than most, that what is visible on the surface often tells only part of the story. In both life and medicine, she was drawn to what lay beneath – the truth, nuance, beauty, and depth.

Her lasting imprint on Hudson Dermatology

Dr. Lazic was instrumental in the founding and early shaping of Hudson Dermatology. She helped lay the foundation of the practice not only through her medical expertise, but through her extraordinary work ethic, her clarity of standards, and her unwavering sense of what patient care should be. The principles that continue to define Hudson Dermatology. Excellence, integrity, human connection, thoughtful listening, and respect for every patient as an individual were deeply influenced by her presence. She believed that great dermatologic care was never only about treatment, but about relationships: trust built over time, attention to detail, and making patients feel genuinely seen, understood, and cared for. In many ways, she helped establish the culture and values that remain central to Hudson Dermatology today.

During her 4 year battle with stage IV cancer while going through multiple surgeries, 15 radiation treatments, 42 cycles of chemo therapy she wrote two children’s graphic novels called Skinventurez educating younger generations about skin care.

In this time she also launched a medical apparel brand of scrubs called hudsons, the mission of which is as Dr. Lazić phrased it:

“In medicine, every challenge comes with a lesson, every hardship with a moment of hope. Hudsons was created for those who dedicate their lives to others - those who are the silver lining in someone’s toughest day.”

A portion of proceeds from hudsons is donated to Cancer Research.

Her legacy in our hearts

There was something unmistakably individual about her. A woman shaped by history, intellect, and elegance, yet never hardened by any of them. She moved through life with both strength and sensitivity, with discipline and warmth. She could be deeply academic and deeply personal at once; exacting in her standards, yet profoundly empathetic in the way she made others feel seen and safe.

Those who knew Dr. Lazić Strugar will remember not only her accomplishments, but her presence: her grace, her intellect, her generosity, and the quiet force of her character. She leaves behind a legacy that lives in the patients she cared for, the students she mentored, the colleagues she inspired, and the family and friends who loved her deeply.

Dr. Tamara Lazić Strugar will be remembered with admiration, gratitude, and enduring affection. Her life was exceptional, her path was entirely her own, and her memory will remain a lasting part of this practice and of all the lives she touched.

Dr. Lazic is a board-certified dermatologist, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology. She is committed to excellence in delivering dermatologic care to patients of all ages.

She received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she graduated summa cum laude, with highest honors and various awards, including the Outstanding Senior Award and the Tom Brokaw Award for Life Achievements. Dr. Lazic obtained two degrees from Yale, completing both her medical school training and internship in internal medicine. She went on to complete dermatology residency at Boston University’s Roger Williams Medical Center, where she served as Chief Resident and received multiple awards for patient care and academic excellence. Dr. Lazic also studied dermatology at the University of Rome in Italy, as well as HIV Primary Care in Santiago, Chile. She is fluent in Spanish and Serbian, and conversational in Italian.

In 2012, she accepted an academic position at Mount Sinai’s St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospitals. Currently she is Associate Clinical Professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she continues to teach dermatology residents and medical students, while seeing patients in Midtown Manhattan. She has published numerous peer reviewed articles and book chapters.

Dr. Lazic’s dermatologic interests include medical and surgical treatment of skin disorders, and she particularly enjoys and specializes in diagnosing and treating skin allergies.

Personal Bio by Dr. Lazic

Looking back at it now, it is hard to believe I grew up in the middle of a civil war, incomprehensible in the last decade of the 20th century, in Europe, and that I am now a citizen of the country that bombed the city of my birth and of my youth, Belgrade. It is a chaotic web of improbable events that led to where I am, and to opportunities.

As boundaries were falling all around Europe, they were rising all around me. With a Serbian mother and a Croatian father, the crossing of boundaries is what I was. I could feel the irrationality of nationalism and tribal hatred in the way complete strangers reacted to my accent, or my last name. I rejected boundaries instinctively, by turning outward, learning foreign languages, traveling, and crossing borders whenever I was given a chance. As a child, despite the fact that my mother was a lawyer and my father a prominent photographer, I gravitated toward science and mathematics, which universally belong to no one and everyone. Science made borders senseless, and that is what I wanted to do.

At eighteen years of age, I left my war-torn country for America, leaving behind the familiar sounds of a language and way of life, knowing that from then on I would return to my childhood home only as a visitor. In coming to America, I arrived to opportunities inexhaustible in a lifetime. From all the choices before me, my choices remained my passions: I learned science and languages, and I insisted on supporting myself financially through something I enjoyed, teaching (mathematics).

The decision to pursue medicine was made fairly early on, and although I loved the basic sciences, I felt biology without a patient was like a sailboat without the wind. This perspective carried over in my research, which continued to be patient focused. My Yale thesis project on Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia, a part of which was carried out in Italy, became something more meaningful and vivid as I learned to communicate with my patients in Italian. As I acquired more medical knowledge, I continued to utilize my language skills in international settings, including dermatology training at the University of Rome, and learning to care for HIV patients in Santiago, Chile. Understanding a language, like crossing a border is not the end point, but rather it is the point of departure.

Dermatology, like a photograph, is an open secret. The lesions present on the surface, the diagnoses, however, can lead to the most remote of etiologies, making the clinical work a daily discovery. Skin may seem like a border between individuals and their environment, but really it is a window to the diseases experienced by the body.

By practicing Dermatology, I crossed over yet another border as a physician who understands that what matters most about what one sees is its link to what lies beneath. In my quest to shed boundaries that are either trivial or artificial, I have chosen a profession in which I will cross daily the very boundary whose integrity is the sine qua non of our existence: the skin.

Research, In The Media, Publications

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