When two worlds collide

Broadly defined, healthcare is the care of the sick and diseased, undertaken by qualified and regulated healthcare practitioners (HCPs). A healthcare professional should be trustworthy and have the respected characteristics to make a decision regarding treatments that will improve the health and wellbeing of the patient (Collier, 2019).

Although it has yet to obtain this official status, aesthetic medicine is a branch of modern-day healthcare, and, as such, the healthcare provider of aesthetic medicine has a medical justification for conducting the medical procedure, even if the outcome is for cosmetic purposes. Aesthetic specialities have evolved from their parent discipline, aesthetic surgery from plastic surgery, maxillofacial from ear, nose and throat (ENT) and aesthetic dermatology from dermatology.

Generally, medical aesthetic treatments are aimed at healthy individuals who have appearance concerns and require aesthetic improvements. Therefore, aesthetic clinicians are not treating the sick and diseased or saving patients, but, instead, are treating the aesthetic seekers who may have different psychological states (Feng, 2020). Yet, this raises the question of whether this should in any way lessen the moral and ethical responsibility and professionalism of the registered HCP. There are still codes of conduct to be upheld, and the HCP is still a representative of their governing body.