Time to think about the role of ethics in aesthetics

This month's Collier Column is written in support of the Journal of Aesthetic Nursing's newly launched campaign, ‘Ethics in aesthetics’. The campaign will give focus to the many ethical and moral dilemmas faced by healthcare professionals (doctors, dentists and registered nurses) who work in the field of aesthetic medicine.

Some important fundamental questions surrounding the field of aesthetic medicine need to be asked and answers established:

Aesthetic medicine is of course an important branch of modern-day healthcare and there must always be medical justification, be that physical or psychological, for carrying out a medical aesthetic procedure. As healthcare professionals, we must never stop medicalising the clinical decisions we make and never trivialise or belittle the importance of the work that we do. Healthcare is a moral undertaking. Unfortunately, in parts of the UK today, aesthetic medicine continues to be an anarchistic lawless community, absent of hierarchy and rules; is it any wonder that it sometimes entices those with a poor ethical and moral stance?