I got this note in February 2004 from Kathy Sheraw, R.N. from Affordable Laser Centre in Falls Church, VA . The issue is not usually doctor versus nurse, but that doctors often allow underqualified practitioners use the devices instead of doing treatment themselves.
</font><blockquote><font size=“1” face=“Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif”>quote:</font><hr /><font size=“2” face=“Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif”> Dear Andrea,
Congratulations and thank you for a very informative site! I would just like to share with you my concern. As a nurse of 23 years and one who has been doing laser hair removal (lhr) for the past 3 years, I have seen quite a few patients coming to me who have had lhr done at a physicians office with rather bad results (burns, crusting, pigmenting, scarring). It is very frustrating to me as a nurse that general consumer information directs people to physicians for lhr. I do, wholeheartedly agree with you that there are people out there doing lhr who have no business having a laser. On a daily basis, I draw from my nursing education/experience when treating my patients and therefore believe that you should at least be a nurse to perform lhr, but I genuinely do not believe you need to be a physician (or working for a physician) to safely and effectively perform laser. You state on your web page that patients should seek out a physician for lhr for safety concerns and I just don’t agree with that. My experience shows me that physicians generally choose to use EMLA and high energy levels. I have found that those methods lead to bad side effects and no more improvement in results. I fact, I would argue that EMLA slows down results.
It’s like so many other things, some people are in it for the money and some people are in it to offer an important service and because they love the work. I chuckle to myself at how much I love my job! I would never have believed my nursing career would lead me down this path.
Anyway, thanks for your time. Please consider adding “Nurse” to your list of those safely performing lhr. It would also be interesting to get some actual numbers from consumers to see if it is actually true that those being treated by physicians for lhr are actually getting better treatments or if that is just an assumption. It’s always better to make those statements with numbers to back them up. I would love to talk to you about this because you obviously are very well educated on the topic of lhr. I am very interested in helping this field grow and to help the average consumer find a safe, professional and honest place to have laser hair removal. Thanks for your efforts in this area. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size=“2” face=“Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif”>
[ March 24, 2004, 01:13 AM: Message edited by: Andrea ]