Aesthetic medicine? medical cosmetology? Is medical beauty in chaos or full of vitality?

n this era, when you see a dermatologist, you usually think of “good grades”, “relaxed”, “simple”, “no serious illness”, “no need to be on duty”, etc., as well as the most popular “medical beauty” “, this can be said to be the fate of dermatology. Through the window of “medical beauty”, we can see more beautiful scenery than other doctors, but we also see a large piece of garbage beside the window.

We have been talking about “medical beauty”, but it is actually wrong. Those who use “醫學美容” mainly focus on cosmetic behavior. Because “aesthetic medicine” means “beautiful medicine”, the only nitpicking of these dermatologists actually reflects the basic attitude and concept of a doctor.

When we judge whether a person is beautiful or not, the condition of te skin must be taken into consideration first. Don’t you see that the ultimate goal of makeup, maintenance, sun protection, laser, and even injections, etc., is to make the skin look good, so skin beauty is beauty? An important part of medicine.

And when is our skin most beautiful? 

Of course, it is a newborn baby. Such breakable and elastic skin is the most desirable, so skin beauty is actually an act against time. We can’t change you from black to white, but we can pursue it. The most important thing is to restore the skin to a more youthful state.

Laser is a very important tool for pursuing skin rejuvenation today. As early as 1962, dermatologists began to use lasers to treat skin diseases. In the early years, vaporized laser (carbon dioxide laser) was mainly used to directly destroy skin tumors. Until the emergence of the “Selective Photothermolysis” theory in 1983, by adjusting the wavelength, pulse, energy, and other parameters of the laser, it was possible to destroy only the pigments, blood vessels, and other structures in the skin without damaging other structures, Such as dye laser, ruby ​​laser, etc., some people call it “magic bullet”.

The emergence of the concept of segmental treatment is another revolutionary change. By dividing the original fixed-size beam into hundreds of smaller beams, it can cause thermal damage to hundreds of small areas on the skin, which can not only achieve a considerable degree of The dermal collagen reconstruction (skin tightening) effect, and the side effects and recovery period are greatly reduced. Fraxel laser is such a classification.

The appearance of the Fraxel laser foretells the common demands of today’s patients for aesthetic medicine, namely: comfortable, fast, gradual, and no side effects. This general direction continues to advance, such as cold touch lasers, pulsed light, light wave skin, and even skin cleansing lasers, black porcelain dolls, white porcelain dolls, etc. Maintenance laser is becoming more and more popular, and cosmetic medical cosmetology behaviors and beauty maintenance behaviors are becoming more and more popular. As we get closer, new gimmicks and nouns keep popping up, confusing even us as dermatologists.

Some people think that this is “the prosperity of the medical aesthetics industry”, but this is actually a warning signal to doctors and the public. When doctors gradually become beauticians, how can doctors develop their professional judgment? We know that any treatment in medicine will have indications. If it does not meet the indications, it is called over-treatment. When a patient you have never seen before comes in, you will treat him. Wouldn’t it be possible to treat patients who do not meet the indications one day? Should the patient be treated as long as he is willing to pay?

It doesn’t matter if overtreatment hurts the patient’s wallet, but won’t it hurt the patient’s body and the relationship between the doctor and the patient one day? Some people may think that it is a maintenance treatment anyway, as long as the patient feels better. Regardless of the moral fallacy of this argument, the human body is full of mysteries, and many maintenance treatments may also cause complications.

●  Skin cleansing laser full of imagination (melasma, rosacea, leukoderma)

●  A whitening needle that covers three ugliness

●  Mesotherapy: a new treatment lacking clinical evidence

●  Zebra pattern on the news: pulsed light 

In addition, commercialization intervenes in medical decisions, which is not a good thing and affects medical judgments.

Evidence-based?

Recently, the news related to 醫學美容中心 has attracted the most attention. Nothing is more than the fact that the chief surgeon of the Department of Surgery at National Taiwan University switched to a medical beauty center, which aroused a lot of public outrage. Discussions like Schweitzer-like medical ethics in the past are flooding the media and the Internet.

I want everyone to start to re-examine the field of aesthetic medicine. It is a good thing. For many years, aesthetic medicine has been waiting for. It is like an illegitimate child of plastic surgery in the medical cosmetology world and the dermatology department of the younger brother. In the big family where “research is the highest and the five majors are the highest”, it has been unable to gain recognition. 

Until today, the family has had a big crisis. Health insurance is choking our throats. Medical disputes and violence are like thorns in the back. Everyone thinks of it again. American medicine is good, and they rush into its embrace.

But what is it that cannot be concealed? It is the shame that will still appear when others tease you with “want to make money”, so I have to use this bad medical cosmetology environment as a shield, “Don’t expect everyone to be Schweitzer, Schweitzer is very good in this environment full of medical disputes. He might have been arrested and imprisoned long ago, let alone me?”