My journey started in 2016 with IMA, I was clueless about the Aesthetic Medicine industry, I had seen an email invite of a hands-on course and it seemed a lot more interesting than what I was doing at the time. Having contacted IMA, I was fully registered and sent online material to read through and waiting for the course start date. The beauty with IMA is that they are welcoming of healthcare professionals who had had no previous aesthetic training nor experience, just need the passion to learn and discover.
Being a General Practitioner, we dabble a bit in Dermatology and skin care, etc. Note that Dermatology and Aesthetic Medicine are not as related as everyone believes they are. Skin Diseases are extremely complex and could relate to other systemic illnesses or problems and therefore works as an identifying factor in some cases. However Aesthetic Medicine is an art, and its also a huge vast field.
My interest in Aesthetics grew more as social media grew around us, I became more exposed to what and how skin could be enhanced, maintained, and of course improved. Jumping from skin to underlying structures and the anatomy of face and body uncovers the beauty of aesthetic medicine and the use of fillers, Botox, threads and many more products that are used today and the list continues to expand.
Pictures of procedural ‘before’ and ‘after’ treatments are all over social medica, some physicians choose to explain fully in the caption of a post, while others choose to keep their trade secrets and provide as little as possible. The beauty of dealing with patients that already have a background of the field makes it easier to explain and deliver a medial message. Most patients are highly invested in the field and have read a lot of reviews, feedbacks and even tried most procedures previously. the consultation becomes a discussion and exchange of knowledge, as well as learning the previous experiences the patient had, if any was a negative one then the new information act as a guide to help produce better outcomes.
A double-sided sword, patient knowledge and expectations, combined with the unrealistic (possibly digitally edited) social media content, the truth has been distorted and lost. There are results that just cannot be achieved without surgical intervention, therefore staying true to self, and painting accurate pictures to the patients and correcting their expectations is a major role in this field.
Non-invasive aesthetic medicine, a huge field that requires passion as fuel, to stay up to date and involved in all that’s new, beneficial, and/or just a marketing gimmick. Just like any medical field the advantages and disadvantages closely balance; however, I have not doubted my decision to shift career towards aesthetics, there is just a lot more joy in this line of work.
