Look Before You Leap : Safety in Cosmetic Medicine!

Anita East
3 min readJun 4, 2023

In my podcast — Difficult Conversations About Beauty, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, we like to get to the nitty-gritty of all things beauty.

In my book, Beautiful Unique Faces, through patient stories, I reveal the importance of identifying your Unique Facial Feature to avoid the overfilling, over-freezing, and overtreating rabbit hole many of us are falling foul of. I also expose the real risks associated with having a medical treatment performed on your face, the dangers associated with going to a clinician based wholly on their follower numbers and media hype, and how to take responsibility for your own due diligence in choosing a clinician and treatment option.

In my podcast’s “Look Before You Leap” series, we examine everything you need to consider when having a non-surgical cosmetic medicine treatment.

In this episode, I’m chatting with Bronwyn Granata from AMET about safety in non-surgical cosmetic medicine.

With an 18-year background in aesthetic medicine spanning the globe, Bron has worked in management within pharma companies. As a Registered Nurse, Bronwyn Granata is perfectly placed to set up AMET with co-founder Elena Currie.

AMET, which stands for Aesthetic Medical Emergency Team, is the first of its kind in Australia. Offering 24/7 support for all aesthetic practitioners, AMET is all about complication prevention and management. So many complications that arise in aesthetics are avoidable; however, even the most experienced practitioner will still encounter adverse events. So much so that Bron and I discuss the latest research demonstrating that one in three practitioners will encounter a vascular occlusion or VO in our careers.

At a recent conference in Sydney, almost every practitioner I spoke to had experienced a VO.

Since Bron and I have both experienced the horror of a VO, the likelihood of it happening seems much higher than 30%.

Bron and I go into candid detail, the moments we both realised that our patient was experiencing a VO. We discuss the harrowing timeline of events that followed and how we overcame the situation. Again, not to scare our listeners but of paramount importance is your clinician’s knowledge and the support available to them not if but when they experience any adverse event.

Dermal fillers, anti-wrinkle injections, and all treatments bring a level of expected side effects and risks, such as pain, redness, bruising, and swelling. But there are more serious adverse events for patients to be aware of, too. For example, lumps, bumps, infections, pain escalating to vascular occlusions, skin necrosis, blindness, stroke, and death.

As practitioners, we have a duty of care to inform our patients of these possible risks and side effects. Thankfully most people only ever encounter very mild effects, such as a bit of pain at the injection site or bruising. However, we must inform you about all possibilities. JUST IN CASE.

The most critical advice for someone thinking about, or who wants to support someone thinking about getting cosmetic injectable enhancements;

Find a clinician who values safety and is willing to undertake a thorough consultation with you

Find a clinician who can identify your Unique Facial Feature and advise on treatment options appropriate to ensuring it remains your lead actor

Check out the AMET website for patient information and clinician recommendations

If you find a good clinician — DON’T SHOP AROUND!

Communicate with your practitioner. If you are unsure about something ~ ASK.

The most critical advice for a clinician just embarking on a journey into performing cosmetic enhancements;

Education from independent, non-biased organisations

Attend as many conferences as possible

Find a mentor

Respect your scope of practice, know when to treat, when not to treat and when to refer

Know your codes of conduct and abide by them NMBA, MBA, DBA

Don’t be influenced by a business model and go against your code of ethics ~ DO NO HARM

Join AMET for education and support.

Links to AMET — Instagram — aestheticmet_amet Website — https://aestheticmet.com/

Listen to the Full Podcast Episode here

Anita East Website:

https://www.anitaeast.com/podcasts/difficult-conversations-about-beauty/episodes/2147910547

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3X-PUeOWO8

Apple Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/look-before-you-leap-safety-in-cosmetic-medicine/id1597533352?i=1000606614988

Google Podcast:

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hcHAua2FqYWJpLmNvbS9wb2RjYXN0cy8yMTQ3NDk0MTM3L2ZlZWQ/episode/S2FqYWJpLTIxNDc5MTA1NDc?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiYuIDa6Yz_AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5W21fD1c6ypFUZdgSXyeyr

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Anita East

Anita has performed over 18,000 cosmetic medicine treatments worldwide. She is an international Best Selling author for her book, Beautiful Unique Faces.