From the movie Brazil, directed by Terry Gilliam
Regulators recently posted warnings to the national community that many med spas were potentially dangerous to their customers. What is wrong with med spas? Well, if you go in for laser hair removal and there is no doctor monitoring what is going on or training the aestheticians, the potential for harm is higher than it needs to be. Do you ever see a doctor when you go for laser hair removal? Probably not. Why? Because the doctor is usually an investor in the med spa. You cannot use a laser without a medical license holder being responsible for the laser, but that is usually where the doctoring ends. So, you have a highly sensitive and dangerous medical device being wielded by people who are probably fully trained to use it but not licensed in the nuance of the devices. It normally is not a problem unless you have skin that is overly sensitive to the laser, slightly pigmented, etc. When a problem develops, the customer is burned in sensitive areas and often the customer is then treated as a customer rather than a patient. Many times, people come to me after being burned by lasers and then mistreated in follow up. If you are burned by a laser, you should seek burn treatment and be treated by a doctor and not by an office manager. Why do these problems develop? Because the med spa business touts the business as a way for internal medicine doctors to make extra money without extra work. It’s a side hustle. But many internal medicine doctors are not trained to deal with lasers and are not specialists in burns or complications. So, you end up with crappy care as a result of someone’s side hustle being outside their area of expertise. It is very hard for the customer to figure out if they are at a good or bad med spa and hence the general warning from the regulators.
Link to article:
https://medtigo.com/news/safety-warnings-for-med-spa-procedures-increase/