Do I Really Need a Medical Doctor for My Aesthetic Procedures?
You’ve all seen photos online or shows on TV: devastating results of injectable and other aesthetic procedures and treatments administered by non-medical non-board certified personnel. The results can be dreadful.
Have you seen the latest TV reality show called Botched? It features women (and a few men) who have gone in for some form of aesthetic enhancement, or just to look refreshed, and they come out as though they have been in a horror movie – upside down breast implants, cheek paralysis, asymmetrical cheeks, lips and eye lids, lumps and bumps from improperly administered fillers and sometimes even illegal fillers. These poor subjects have been “botched” for sure. Their only recourse is more surgery to repair the damage done.
At about this point you you’re probably asking yourself:
“Why?”
“What happened?”
“Can this happen to me?”
Miserable results may ensue when aesthetics are practiced by those without a medical license, appropriate training, quality products, up to date knowledge, or an aesthetic sense. You need all of these qualities to achieve optimal results. At a minimum, you know, intuitively, that having a medical license is a built-in qualification for administering many types of procedures and treatments. In the aesthetic field, the difference between using a medical professional for your aesthetic needs versus a non-medical technician may be considerable.
To obtain best results, one should choose doctors with experience, appropriate knowledge, who understand symmetry and beauty, and can relate to what the patient is trying to achieve. It’s also important to have a doctor who cares, who has been properly trained and certified to perform the services in question, and who can help guide decisions to achieve the best results for each of the patient’s concerns. In essence, the aesthetic doctor should be your confidante, mirror and coach.
Finally, I must emphasize the importance of the artistry that makes each treatment unique to each patient. Aesthetic treatments cannot be delivered well with a cookie cutter approach. This is why at my office I am the only person who administers injectables. Consider this: if you were going to have a portrait done by an artist, would you have the artist make the portrait, or the artist’s assistant? I remind you of “the sorcerer’s apprentice” in Fantasia. There the professional ceded responsibility to the assistant and disaster ensued. The rest is musical history.
My unqualified recommendation when choosing the person to whom you are entrusting how you appear to the world around you, is to select a medical professional who is experienced, artful and accountable.
