MediSpa Treatments Should Always be Performed by Clinical Professionals

Medi-spa treatments are best left to professionals to perform, both for reasons of quality and safety.  While medical spa treatments are safe when performed by professionals such as aestheticians, nurses and physicians who have knowledge of the procedures and know how to handle individual client problems and potential emergencies, there can be a potential danger if improperly trained technicians give the procedures.  For that reason some states are considering regulation, and many aestheticians are participating on committees and local task forces exploring the idea of medical spa regulation.

The Boston Herald ran an article on the explosion of unregulated medical spas offering anti wrinkle injections, chemical peels and laser treatments and how some consumers have reported disfigurement including burns and permanent scarring.  Nancy Achin Aduesse, the Executive Director of the state Board of Registration in Medicine, is head of a Medical Spa Task Force.

She says “The numbers are growing so fast and there’s such a profit motive for the unscrupulous and unqualified to get into it, we want to prevent harm…” A bill in the state senate formed the task force after State Senator Joan Menard was approached by two of her constituents who suffered burns during laser treatments at unregulated spas.

Dr. Ranella Hirsch, a Cambridge dermatologist and char of the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery points out that the treatments are medical treatments and admonishes those unqualified practitioners who set up shop in shopping malls and shopping centers trying to turn medical spa treatments into impulse purchases.  She says “these are medical treatments. Medical treatments don’t belong in malls.”

Hannelore Leavy, Executive Director of the International Medical Spa Association says “Consumers need to know it’s a medical procedure and should not be taken lightly even though it’s done in the spa setting.”  Doctors, nurses and aestheticians often serve on the state committees alongside lawmakers developing rules to govern the unregulated clinics. Because the safety of clients is of paramount importance, along with the good name and reputation of the profession of aesthetics, most legitimate medical spa operators and most aestheticians support regulation.

Many feel that the medical spa industry is new enough in the United States to be at the same point attorneys and physicians were at when they formed professional associations to cooperate with government agencies for regulatory purposes.  For the safety of consumers most aestheticians believe that the time for regulation has come.