Everyone wants to know how the top facial aesthetic clinicians did it: how do they know which course to take? How do they market their treatments and find the right patients?

Learning from others is instrumental in understanding how to stay on top of an industry with little regulation and constant media attention.

There are options for aspiring dentists: reputable courses and university-accredited qualifications, exhibitions, conferences and organisations. There are journals and ongoing research. Then there are dentists who have been in the same shoes.

One such dentist is Olha Vorodyukhina. I met her for the first time at this year’s CCR Expo 2016 exhibition in London. She was one of the only speakers there offering her thoughts on entering the facial aesthetics world as a dentist.

‘When it comes to the top players in aesthetic medicine, you will always find dermatologists, plastic surgeons, doctors and nurses, but not as many dentists,’ Olha tells me. ‘I think dentistry and facial aesthetics are the perfect match and I am determined to show that dentists can be equally as good as the top aesthetic doctors.’

We meet again a few weeks later and I ask her to help me get to grips with a growing industry that invites so much appeal, but can often be a tough one to break.

 

1. Do your research

Before embarking on a career in facial aesthetics, Olha was a practising dentist (and still is). She was raised in a family of medics and felt pressured to do the same; her father is a surgeon and her grandfather was a doctor during World War Two.

Olha started university at a young age (16) and by the time she graduated, at 21, she still wasn’t sure if dentistry was her true calling. Nevertheless, she went into practice, and things soon began falling into place.

Dentistry became her passion, she says, but it wasn’t without its hardships and it wasn’t without knowing what else lay out there too. ‘I did my research,’ she tells me. ‘When I met my husband – an aesthetics doctor – I became aware how interested in beauty and aesthetic medicine I was. I helped him set up his aesthetics business and came to know a lot more facial aesthetics and absolutely loved it.’

Now Olha teaches facial aesthetics for Cosmetic Courses and reveals that the first piece of advice she gives her students is to think before you act.

‘Don’t get into facial aesthetics because you’ve heard it’s popular or fashionable; some people think it’s easy money but I can tell you it’s not. Find a reputable training company. Look around for courses that suit you and offer a practical side as well, especially if you don’t have a background in aesthetics. You need that aftercare and support.’

 

2. Own your skills

Dentists are almost perfectly qualified to take on facial aesthetics. Olha describes dentistry as a ‘technical, hands-on’ branch of medicine.

‘Not every doctor will be doing injections on a daily basis,’ she says. ‘So I think dentists are naturally trained to have good manual skills, and at some point in their career would have done cosmetic dentistry before.’

Many patients often attend the dentist for adult orthodontics or tooth whitening, which can be a cue to start talking about facial aesthetic treatments.

Plus, as Olha explains, dentists understand facial anatomy better than anyone else.

‘Many aesthetic issues, like the damage caused by bruxism, can be treated by injecting the facial muscles – something that dentists will already be familiar with,’ she notes.

‘You don’t go to your GP with a cold and at the same time get offered non-surgical aesthetic treatments. Patients are in the right environment at the dentist – and it’s good to take advantage of that!’

 

3. Understand your limitations

Facial aesthetics is a growing field, despite the lack of regulation in the UK. Unfortunately, this also means that some one-day courses that claim to make you an expert in a day won’t.

‘No one-day course in anything can make you an expert,’ Olha says. ‘Aesthetic medicine is a practical science. It’s not possible to learn everything in one day; you end up becoming confused by how to apply it to practice.’

If you understand the limitations that one-day courses have, it’s easier to see the benefits of investing further into training.

To be on the safe side, Olha suggests that once you have qualified with your initial training, keep going. Gain more experience, inject dermal fillers under supervision, search for one-to-one training. ‘Read good books, clue yourself up on the latest research, subscribe to aesthetic journals, go to events. If you’re willing to put the work in, it will be worthwhile,’ Olha maintains.

 

4. Know your potential

Dental practices are well placed to offer facial aesthetic treatments – perhaps more so than doctors. ‘It’s much easier to add a new service like aesthetics to your dental practice with very little investment, particularly if it’s private,’ explains Olha. ‘If you were a doctor working in a hospital, you’d have to start a new business from scratch, which is much more difficult.’

But despite the ease and potential many dentists have when it comes to offering new aesthetic treatments, Olha thinks that they are often the first to undermine themselves.

‘I often hear dentists who do facial aesthetics saying they do “a little bit of Botox and fillers,” and this is wrong! You undermine your services and your expertise. Put aesthetics on the same shelf as dentistry and consider your language when you talk about it with a patient.’

Olha believes understanding the business side of facial aesthetics is crucial. Even though there are no laws governing the industry yet, being regulated by a reputable voluntary body like Save Face will put your services on another level. ‘Patients need to know if they have chosen a safe practitioner and with the way things stand at the moment, it can be a little confusing,’ says Olha.

‘The way to stand out from the crowd is to show patients that you have been properly regulated at some point.

‘I am accredited through Save Face, which helps patients find safe, non-surgical cosmetic practitioners. They send a clinical expert to your practice who inspects everything from your treatment protocol, to how you keep your notes and what aftercare you provide the patient.’

 

5. Figure out if it’s for you

Facial aesthetics can be profitable, but only when you are good at what you do. ‘It will take time,’ Olha says. ‘First you need to invest, and then you can get a return on investment. If you approach facial aesthetics thinking you will get a huge return after doing one course, then you’re in the wrong industry.’

Figure out if facial aesthetics is something you really want to do by doing it. Olha describes herself as ‘ambitious’, and maintains that ambition is the key to success.

‘I am strong-minded and if I have an aim, I go for it,’ she explains.

At the moment, Olha runs her own aesthetic medicine business, Shine Medical, and offers aesthetic treatments at City Dental Practice in Leicester under the Shine Medical banner. She also practises in Nottingham.

‘I enjoy the variety facial aesthetics offers me. I think it’s about finding your niche and figuring out how you want to provide non-surgical cosmetic treatments – whether you already run your own dental clinic and want to add aesthetics treatments, or if you want to practise as an associate.

 

‘There is no right way, but ensure that it is something you want to do, because it won’t do the work for you!’