THE JOURNAL / The Importance of a full medical consultation prior to aesthetic treatments
The Importance of a full medical consultation prior to aesthetic treatments
By: Amanda Azzopardi
16/09/21
I just wanted to write a blog about the importance of a full medical consultation, prior to treatment and why it’s so important that we undertake this journey together so that we get to know each other a bit more.
So for me as a practitioner, I would never undertake an actual treatment without having a lengthy discussion with a client or a patient first. Working in a hospital and undergoing a consultation or a chat or finding out about a patient’s full medical history is exactly the same whether in my job in the hospital or in my private clinic.
So you’re thinking of undergoing an aesthetic treatment?
It’s not a surgical treatment, it’s a non-surgical treatment.
However, there are still risks, and you need to be aware of all of these risks, so you can make an informed decision about your treatment. There will be outcomes, there will be good outcomes, there will be outcomes that cause a different concern, it’s all part of a journey and it’s my job to get to the bottom of where you want to go with your treatments, to be able to provide you with the most optimal outcome.
When you first contact me, it might be through a variety of different sources. It might be through Instagram or through Facebook. It might be via text message or through my website. You might pick up the phone and call me, and that’s all fine, but when you’re having a text conversation with somebody, it’s very difficult to see what their skin’s like, what age they are, what extent of volume loss they have suffered, so it is therefore almost impossible to provide you with a price via text message without seeing you first. I need to know a lot about you before I can start any treatment on you.
Another thing that’s very important is to know what your goals are and your expectations from that treatment, and whether that treatment is the right one for you. There’s a lot of different reasons why people come to me for treatment. Sometimes it’s their skin, they might have large pores or acne that they might not like, or they might be ageing and have some volume loss or some fine lines and wrinkles that are appearing.
Or they might just have a concern that they don’t really know what I do, what service I provide and they might want to have a chat about what options there are for their problems. So there’s a lot of different reasons why people come to me and I need to know a bit of background about you before I can treat you.
Sometimes people approach me because they’ve seen a photo of themself that somebody’s taken on their phone or they’ve noticed that they are getting some jowls or their skin quality is very dull, and they’d like to improve all these things. It’s important to me to know the reason why they’ve come to me in the first place.
There are lots of things that can happen in your skin from the ages of 20 to 30, then 30 to 40 and so on, And what we see on the outside is just the superficial layer of skin. It’s a lot more intricate and involved when we go deeper down.
You’ve got your layers of skin, and then you’ve got your fat pads, muscles, bones and ligaments and vessels to take into consideration. When you’re telling me about the concern that you have, I’m thinking about the treatments that I can offer you. There’s a lot of different layers to your face that I have to consider, and how the different options will affect each layer.
It’s really nice to sit in front of you and see your face move and see which way your muscles move. Sometimes you send me a photo first and that’s okay, however it’s really nice to have that conversation with you so that we can even develop a bit of rapport, a bit of trust between the two of us. It goes a long way to developing a positive practitioner-patient relationship. It’s important to have trust in your practitioner, and trust in yourself, that I can provide you with the treatment and meet your expectations.
There are lots of different stages of people’s lives that they come to me. It might be at a reproductive stage or a peri-menopausal stage or a menopausal stage. There are different things that occur to your skin and different things that occur to your fat pads and muscles through all of these stages of your life.
You may come to me, just wanting to have a scar rejuvenated or refreshed or smoothed over. And that’s very important to some people, their outward appearance and how they look. That can really affect their internal feelings about themselves so there’s a lot of things I can help you with.
And it’s much nicer to have that journey together. It’s a major step in allowing me to provide you with a safe and successful approach to your treatment to achieve your goals both emotionally and physically. It simply doesn’t matter what stage of your life you’re at, if you come to me, seeking help whether it’s been triggered by an emotion or by a physical appearance, we can achieve these results together.
It’s also my responsibility, that if I can’t provide you with a service or, I feel like the treatment that you’re seeking is outside of my scope of the treatments that I can provide, then it’s up to me to say so. If so, I can refer you to somebody who does provide that service, so it’s not just all about me providing you with a service, I want to be able to meet your needs.
If we can have this chat together, then it facilitates the opportunity for us both to be on the same wavelength and know exactly what your needs are and where you want to go with your treatments in the future.
Now, getting down to the nitty-gritty of it legally and professionally, I need to know about things like all your medical history, the medications that you’re currently taking. Sometimes when you’re taking a certain medication or you have a particular medical condition, it may render you not suitable for some treatments, but other times there are treatments that will be much better for you.
So, if I have that knowledge in place, I can often offer you the best treatment possible. I can also get the best outcome for you. If you have diabetes or a thyroid problem, or another medical condition, certain treatments are not completely contraindicated, but they may be a little bit more complicated and they will need to be approached with a bit more caution.
If I know that you’re on certain medications and those medications react to certain product that I’m using, then we can avoid those products, if I don’t have that knowledge on board, to begin with, it could provide you with a sub-optimal service.
Often I will need to know your surgical history as well as your medical history, and any scars on your face that you’ve had may cause underlying concerns that we might broach during treatment. Knowing about these beforehand can optimise your treatment as well. You may have been through an emotional journey and had a lot of weight loss or just had a lot of weight gain. Things that happen in life can change the shape of your face, and it change the skin on your neck. All of these things can affect you.
There are also environmental factors like smoking that can affect your skin quality, so we can talk about rejuvenating your skin quality or reducing your smoking or alcohol intake as alcohol can really dehydrate and age your skin. The main thing is if we have a really good background of your medical history and your surgical history and the medications that you’re taking, and treatments you have previously undertaken, then we both know where we’re headed with your treatment journey, and we can make it a positive experience for both of us.
I do love a medical consultation because it opens up a lot of doors for both of us, we find out a bit about you, and the options that are available.
I know it’s very difficult at the moment. I do prefer to have face to face consultations. However, I am currently doing video consultations and FaceTime consultations.
There is going to be a time when we’re functioning again very soon in the future, so please send me a message or an email.
Give me a call, we can have a chat.
Amanda x
