What the reviews don’t tell you
By Dr Tim Pearce, MBChB BSc (Hons) MRCGP
When choosing to buy anything these days, we tend to be swayed heavily by positive reviews.
SkinViva Training enjoys excellent reviews for our foundation and advanced botox and dermal filler courses and lip injections course, but it struck me that there is a lot more to a review than just the five stars given.
How would you tell the difference between two courses that are both backed by 5 star ratings? It requires a little more thought.
The key factor to realise, is that a review really just tells you whether or not a training course has met the expectations of the delegate.
As an analogy, picture a restaurant review. The local takeaway pizza restaurant near me enjoys a higher average review on TripAdvisor than a restaurant I only treat myself to on rare and on very special occasions. There is no doubt in my mind that the food is far superior in the expensive restaurant, but the pizza restaurant is obviously meeting the lower expectations of its customers better.
The first thing you need to decide on when choosing a course is not the 5 star reviews, but what are the objectives the course is trying to meet?
When I designed the foundation course I set out to produce a course with rather ambitious objectives.
How comprehensive is the course?
From the outset the skinviva doctors aimed to produce the most comprehensive training school in the UK. Knowing how to remove a common line or wrinkle is relatively quick and easy to teach. However, there is much more to being a competent professional than just the mechanical process of injecting an unwanted line.
- How do you consult a potential client without upsetting them?
- How do you tell them everything you are capable of achieving without looking like a salesperson instead of a clinician?
- How do you match expectations?
- How do you take effective pictures that allow fair assessment of the before and afters?
- How do you prioritise treatment areas when finances are limited?
- How do you consent and safety net your clients to be sure they understand the risks and what to do if there is an impending complication?
- How do you manage the side effects and complications if they do occur?
These are just a few of the many areas of competence that are required from day 1 of your aesthetic practice, even if you are on trained on a very small range of treatments.
A mistake I made when choosing my first training course was to choose the one that seemed to cover the most number of areas on the face (The company no longer exists).
From memory it was nose to mouth or nasolabial lines, mouth to chin or melolabial lines, upper lip lines and lips). In the end I learned three out of four, as there were not enough models, but I wasn’t taught anything about the most serious side effect, necrosis caused by intravascular injection!
How much practical experience do you get?
There’s no worse feeling than being out of your depth in a clinical situation. Most professionals should avoid it wherever possible. Because faces are so varied, we think injecting practice is vital, and you will see and treat usually several of each of the different areas you are being taught. On top of that, the course is designed to give you strategies rather than injection patterns, so you can select different strategies for different patterns and severities of ageing.
Over all you should observe or treat around 15 to 20 procedures under very close guidance from an experienced aesthetic doctor. Their brief is not simply to get you going, but to teach you all that they know about each particular area.
How much backup do you get after the training?
There is no way you can experience all the side effects and various causes of dissatisfaction even in a year long course, so what happen if you feel out of depth with a client?
Firstly, if you have trained with SkinViva you can enjoy lifetime support with complications and severe side effects. These are thankfully rare, but we will for example see and treat any client for fee with an impending necrosis after intravascular injection.
You also get free after course backup over email or phone for any queries on safety, efficacy, consultation, consent, photography or any of the other domains.
What about non-clinical or business content?
Few candidates expect a course to teach them everything on business, but you do need to know some fundamentals.
- Where do you get stock and supplies from?
- How do various pricing strategies affect your business?
- How do you decide prices?
- Where do you get insurance for aesthetics?
- Where do you get clients from?
- How do you plan and measure the performance of your business?
Botox and Fillers Training Manchester
SkinViva Training Academy offers a comprehensive range of medical training courses for cosmetic and medical skin treatments.
Their courses are designed for medical professionals such as suitably qualified and registered medical professionals who wish to learn and build on their skills in delivering these procedures.
SkinViva Training was established by by Dr Tim Pearce MBChB BSc (Hons) MRCGP. The SkinViva Training team upholds high standards of clinical training providing a combination of fully-supervised practical experience together with essential theory.
For further information, to discuss which course is right for you, to enquire about availability or to book a training course please call 0161 850 2491, or email info@skinvivatraining.com.