Here’s our latest article published in Aesthetics and a few take home points:
For patients:
(1) Check that your practitioner is actually who they say they are, you can check this out by looking on the General Medical Council (GMC), General Dental Council (GDC) or Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) websites (for nurses, you should ask them for their PIN number to check registration). There are lots of practitioners outing there who are masquerading as something they are not – this is illegal and should be reported to the Police who will take this very seriously! There are even a few who may have once been a registered practitioner but no longer hold a license to practice.
(2) There is no such thing as a Cosmetic Surgeon, it’s an unrecognised title by the GMC, if a doctor is proclaiming to be one, look them up on the GMC register to see if they do have any surgical experience and if so, in what specialism.
For practitioners:
(1) If you attend a training event, do not assume you will automatically receive a certificate of competence, this must be demonstrated at an appropriate safe level.
(2) Before believing everything that is said by a practitioner, why not check out how much they are being paid for saying it, this information can be found on the ABPI website.
(3) Just because you are very active on social media does not make you a KOL, if you buy lots of product from a particular company, you may be a Key Account but not a KOL. If you have to ask a company to be their KOL, you probably don’t deserve to be one!
KOL PDF