Why I Chose a Clinical Environment for Aesthetic Medicine

One of the things I appreciate about nursing is that accountability follows you wherever you practise.

A nurse does not stop being a nurse because they are working outside of a hospital. Whether care is provided in a traditional medical office, an independent clinic or another appropriate setting, nurses remain accountable to the College of Nurses of Ontario and to the standards of the profession.

So when I opened The Ferris Me, choosing a dedicated clinical environment was intentional.

That does not mean I believe that every nurse has to build a clinic like mine in order to provide good care. There are many different models of health care delivery, and the physical address alone does not determine whether care is safe.

Aesthetics is still health care

For me, however, aesthetics is still health care.

Many aesthetic procedures involve breaking the skin, administering medications or substances, or performing procedures that can have complications. Even when a treatment is elective, the responsibility to assess, obtain informed consent, prevent infection, document appropriately and respond to an adverse event does not disappear.

CNO's current guidance for aesthetic nursing specifically asks nurses to consider the context in which care is being provided: whether the physical environment has the equipment, resources and human supports needed to provide care safely and respond if something goes wrong.

Why I wanted a dedicated clinic

That is one of the reasons I wanted a dedicated clinic.

I wanted treatment rooms designed around patient care. I wanted appropriate storage and infection-prevention processes. I wanted access to emergency equipment and established policies. I wanted privacy for consultations and health information. And I wanted an environment where the person walking through the door understands that, although what we are doing may be cosmetic, they are still receiving nursing care.

Public Health Ontario also recognizes that procedures involving puncturing or otherwise entering intact skin carry infection-prevention considerations, including microneedling.

This isn't about ranking businesses

This isn't about saying that one type of business is automatically “good” and another is automatically “bad.”

It is about explaining the standard I wanted to create for my own practice.

When I left traditional bedside nursing and entered aesthetic medicine, I didn't want to leave the parts of nursing that mattered to me behind.

I wanted to build them into the room.