Why many 'fully qualified' doctors and nurses are misleading the public over Botox & dermal fillers qualifications
Skin Beautiful Medical and Cosmetic Clinic provides expert advanced dermal filler treatments at clinics in Exeter Milton Keynes Bristol Coventry Swansea Warwick Daventry Evesham Carmarthen Llanelli and Neath.
How honest are UK doctors and nurses about qualifications?
Government commissioned report: Critical of doctors, nurses who lie about their ability and/or qualifications in aesthetics including Botox & dermal fillers
Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director in England, in his report into the review of reconstructive and cosmetic interventions raised high level concerns at those who call themselves 'aesthetics practitioners.'
He further criticises doctors, dentists and nurses who call themselves 'specialists', 'consultants' or 'best placed' in aesthetics especially where they have no qualifications or formal training.
Under the microscope
Doctors, nurses, aesthetics practitioners and their qualifications
The number of doctors and nurses in the UK who claim to be 'fully qualified' is significant. The number who claim to be fully qualified and have neither received any aesthetics training or hold any aesthetics qualifications is frankly astounding!For many, their reference to being 'fully qualified' relates only to a medical or nursing degree. Furthermore, some nurses, especially RN's do not even hold a nursing degree. So to claim to be 'fully qualified in aesthetics' or 'fully qualified in Botox and dermal fillers' is not only deceptive, but also highlights practitioners' using an academic qualification (often taxpayer funded) completely out of context. The NMC own code of conduct outlaws the practice of nurses claiming to be qualified where they do not hold an official post or qualification.
Claims made by UK doctors (GP's) in medical aesthetics practice
"All our doctors are registered with the General Medical Council"Well, I should hope so too. Otherwise how would they be obtaining the Botox and/or dermal fillers in the first place? The GMC do not provide any training, qualifications, accreditation or certification to doctors practising aesthetics. I therefore question the purpose and validity of such a claim in reassuring the discerning public over injectable aesthetics treatments such as Botox or dermal fillers.
"All treatments are carried out by our expert medical doctor"An expert medical doctor is not an expert specialist aesthetics practitioner.
"Only fully trained and qualified doctors should be trusted with these treatments"This statement is frankly nothing short of pure and unadulterated deception. A GP with an medical degree knows absolutely nothing about aesthetics. A medical degree is awarded on the basis of knowledge of disease and medicine.
"...our skilled medical Doctor, Dr XXX XXXXXX offers an extensive range of simple non-surgical treatment....Speak to our specialists today"Again, potentially deceptive. Skilled in medical practice, perhaps, but that is not transferable to aesthetics. A doctor calling him/herself 'skilled' because of a medical degree does not qualify him/her as a 'specialist' in aesthetics. Just another way of deceiving the public.
Many of these claims are simply a case of doctors using their medical qualifications to warrant their existence in aesthetics practice. Of course, there are many excellent doctors in aesthetics practice. That is not the point here. It is about using a qualification and title out of context to to gain trust in the general public.
The prevalence of this practice amongst certain groups of aesthetics practitioners suggests complacency over one's title. As if to say 'I'm quite well qualified thank you and so don't need an aesthetics qualification!' It should come as no surprise then that a much lower percentage of doctors attend specialist medical aesthetics training courses than nurses do before setting up clinics to provide Botox and dermal fillers treatments.
Do the facts support the doctors' claims?
Are doctors really best placed to provide these treatments?Not only do nurses represent the largest contingent of aesthetics practitioners in the UK, but are also the largest contingent with specialist medical aesthetics training and qualifications.
Furthermore, figures provided by the British Association of Cosmetic Nurses (BACN) suggest that at least 54% of all dermal filler treatments in the UK are provided by nurses, versus just 13% by doctors. The figure for nurses to include those that work non independently (i.e. within clinics) is estimated at over 70% for dermal fillers. Similarly, nurses provide more Botox treatments in the UK than all other groups combined, at 52%. In 2009, 40% of all dermal fillers purchases in the UK directly from manufacturers was made by nurses.
Given the above figures and the huge volumes, one might expect the highest number of incidents, claims and injuries of Botox and dermal fillers treatments to be from nurses. However, nurses represent only 14% of paid insurance claims. Furthermore, the leading medical aesthetics insurance company reported only 10 complaints made against nurses for dermal fillers treatments in the past 5 years.
General practitioners often refer patients to specialists and specialist nurses for treatments and therapies outside of their normal practice. In contrast, it is almost unheard of for a GP to refer a patient to a certified medical aesthetics practitioner for an a Botox or dermal fillers treatment. On occasion when I see an experienced doctor from general practice promoting him/herself as a leading authority in aesthetics without mention of independent medical aesthetics qualifications then I am always highly sceptical.
What about our own clinic?
I could not possibly be so hypocritical as to write this article without making reference to my own clinic 'Skin Beautiful.' We often refer to our clinic as 'advanced' and 'expert' Why? Simply because I hold independent industry leading advanced medical and cosmetic aesthetics training and qualification certificates. I also have a registered advanced practitioner number from the medical aesthetics training company who certified me. This is something I would strongly urge all clients to request before trusting a practitioner with an advanced treatment.The advantage of the practitioner registration number is that any potential client may (and I hope many will) contact my training company to verify not only my qualifications but also my ability to perform advanced Botox & dermal fillers treatments.
...and the 'expert' bit
The advanced training is and qualification is quite simply just that. The practitioner attends a taught course, performs a range of advanced Botox & dermal fillers treatments and if the standard is acceptable to the awarding body then a certificate is awarded. It's very much like a taught undergraduate degree as opposed to a post graduate research degree where the student must invent, discover and/or improve upon existing methods in his/her field of expertise.That's exactly what we've done. Science is evolutionary, and we're not a clinic to rest on laurels. Over the past 6 months we have been busy analysing and evaluating existing dermal filler treatments and techniques. From this point we have clinically developed our own dermal filler treatments. These treatments involve techniques quite unlike any other clinic or practitioner offers. Additionally, the treatments offer a noticeable improvement on traditional lip enhancement and cheek augmentation.
The treatments are:
LIPS! by HELEN BOWES®
CHEEKS! by HELEN BOWES®
Aesthetics is a science and if we all claim to be advanced practitioners then there needs to be some advancement from within. Otherwise, as new innovative products reach the market then many practitioners who rest on their laurels will be left behind.
About the author:
Helen Bowes RGN, BSc (hons), AMAP is a qualified advanced medical & cosmetic aesthetics practitioner and clinical director of Skin Beautiful Medical & Cosmetic Clinic. Helen provides advanced Botox & dermal fillers treatments at clinics in Exeter Milton Keynes Bristol Coventry Swansea Warwick Daventry Carmarthen Llanelli and Neath.
Useful links
Skin Beautiful homepage
About Helen Bowes & Skin Beautiful clinics
About dermal fillers
Helen Bowes on YouTube
Support our Facebook campaign for honesty in aesthetics.
