Red flags in practitioners, wow, unfortunately there are plenty, but here are some of the more alarming ones to look out for and keep your face safe.

Flaunting rules/ laws and guidance. There are so many rules and guidance documents available to ALL practitioners, and whilst the government needs to step in and do more to enforce this, for the time being, it’s on the practitioner and their moral compass. One example is advertising medicines such as toxin (Botox), fat dissolving, filler dissolving, local anaesthetics etc this is not permitted on social media platforms and is against is against ASA rules. Botox, toxin, anti wrinkle injection, muscle relaxing injections; they all imply the same thing, they are loop holes outlined by the ASA and stated that these phrases should not be used. Yet, we see these time and time again. Is it ignorance or arrogance?

A cool off period should always be offered, no pressure applied for patients to get treatment on the day.

Botox parties (need I explain more)?! If someone can’t abide by these simple steps, what else are they bending the rules on?

Avoidance of stating their background. Literally ANYONE can be an aesthetics practitioner, but what I want to know is, what is the back ground of that aesthetic practitioner? Mine is 13 years out of medical school, I trained as a doctor, I’m on the specialist register as a plastic surgeon with 12 years injecting and over 10 in plastics and aesthetics. My FRCS plas (a consultant exit exam) included non-surgical aesthetics knowledge.

An NHS doctor doesn’t mean they’re anymore experienced than the next medical practitioner, a urologist versus a GP ,versus midwife versus an FT2, versus a community nurse, look examining willies all day in the NHS means nothing to me if you aren’t correctly trained and practicing ethically with respect to medical aesthetics.

Duration of practice. Quite often practitioners pick an arbitrary number of ten years and state this is how long they have been practicing. When you look at graduation dates from various degrees such as medicine and nursing, the maths just doesn’t add up. Some might think ten years sounds knowledgeable, actually I’d want to know ‘how do they keep up to date, how do they manage complications, how many numbers have they treated, who trained them, when and where, what do they do maintain knowledge and stay up to date and so on’ they could have treated 10 people in ten years, the time isn’t so relevant once your past a few years, so why exaggerate?!

I know all of this sounds quite ranty and potentially like I’m on my high horse, but it’s such a Wild West culture out there, and how on earth do patients know what to look for in a good practitioner. I have huge, huge, huge respect for those practitioners who practice transparently, safely and ethically, regardless of what stage they are at!

Riding on coat tails of other specialities, so I might sound a bit sour grape like here, but I’ve worked so bloody hard for my plastic surgery FRCS qualification, hearing others who are not plastic surgeons call themselves plastics surgeons or plastics trained after a couple of months on a junior rotation is is just downright deceptive to the general public, they know what it’s implying- they need to stop doing it!

Consenting. ‘Wow look at that 10ml rejuvenation on the latest TikTok celebrity injector’. Do you think the patient looks refreshed, different or distorted? I’ll leave that to you to decide. Do you think that the practitioner once mentioned how long the treatment would last and that to maintain the look, the patient might consider surgery? Whilst to some this is drastic, to others realistic. Some practitioners only offer what they have in the tool box, they should be listing all treatments available to make the same difference to the patient (even if they can’t offer some of the treatments). we see this too often. This is not true consenting, all options should be clear to the patient and they should be fully informed.

Do your research, wherever you go and whomever you seek a treatment from, make sure they are safe, qualified, insured and indemnified (against a recognised medical profession). Its your face and you will wear it for the rest of your life.

#patienteducation #ethicalaesthetics #safetyfirst #aestheticsleeds #aestheticmedicine #aestheticspracticioner #yorkshireaesthetics