Building an ethical bridge to quality in aesthetics

This article discusses the concepts of ethics, accountability, transparency, integrity and professionalism in aesthetic practice. It will discuss some practices and behaviours that form the basis of ethical behaviour, by putting special emphasis on accountability, transparency, integrity and professionalism, as well as exploring some of the issues that compromise ethics in aesthetic practice.

Although the aforementioned concepts are interrelated, and attempts can be made to define each of them independently, when examined as a whole, it is evident there are no clear-cut boundaries.

This lack of definition may positively or negatively impact on others, which implies that all medically-qualified aesthetic practitioners should possess the knowledge and attributes to put ethical principles into practice.

Ethics deal with the character, conduct and morals of human beings. The study of ethics deals with good or bad, right or wrong behaviour; it evaluates conduct against some absolute criteria and puts negative or positive values on it (Committee on Standards in Public Life, 2014). Ethics can also be defined as the basic principles of the action and rules of good conduct. These criteria can be in writing, such as legislation or circulars, or merely the interpretation by an individual of what is acceptable and what is not.