In this area, the only places to go for laser is a physician’s office. Two places are ran by plastic surgeons and the other is an actual hospital.
Does anyone know the pro’s and con’s to this as opposed to a spa or something similar? I wouldn’t know if there is a difference in price, but I would think (I could be wrong), a physician’s or plastic surgeon’s office would have more training/experience.
More states are requiring Laser treatments to be performed by Doctors. I do not know where you are located, but I know the requirements in Washington State is getting more strict in regards to Laser Treatments. In fact, they are going after spas that perform laser hair removal for Practicing Medicine without a License.
Laser is not a toy and the news that about 20 percent of those that go for treatments end up with some form of scaring. At least those are the figures that I have read.
I guess what I am saying, is that it could very well be your state that is requiring Laser to be performed in the medical centers.
um, where exactly did you read these 20% figures. as far as I know, this is completely made up. there aren’t even studies done to gauge this in any way. considering you have an incentive to throw out these figures, please post a link if you in fact read this somewhere. sorry, i have to take this a bit personally because it takes a while to disprove this myth on there already considering most people who come to the forums already are those who are unhappy for whatever reason with their treatments.
to answer the original question, it really doesn’t depend on the letters behind a person’s name. hair removal is not taught in med schools. what you should be looking for is someone who has done hair removal in particular for a while and has an interest in it, enough to go out and do research in addition to the whatever minimal training the laser manufacturer provides. for example, going to conferences on the subject. also, just someone who has been in this business for a long time and has performed hair removal specifically many times or as big part of their business, rather than just a side money-making business in addition to their regular practice. you can find all this out by going to consultations and asking the right questions after learning the ins and outs of laser hair removal even on here yourself. that way you can see if their answers are correct and they know what they’re doing.
what state are you in? some states like New Jersey require the laser operators to be physicians. This is not necessary a good thing though as for most it’s not their primary occupation.
I’m in Wisconsin, but the closest facility would be in the Duluth MN area.
I’m from Washington state and I don’t find any factual basis for this post. Yes, Washington state is now requiring that laser treatments to be performed by nurses. This quote is from a news letter that I received last fall:
“Unfortunately, the MQAC chose not to budge on their stand and passed the ruling as they had written it. Starting in March 2007, only doctors, registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, aesthetician’s or Physician’s Assistants will be allowed to fire a Class IV Laser.”
I think the State is in error for changing the qualifications as there have been many good technicians out there who have been performing well. If a person who has the basic education and the training (which includes supervised experience), they can do LHR. It is odd because they don’t have this course in nursing school, medical school, or any other school qualifying a person to work in the medical field. Yes, these people might have more formal education in biology, microbiology and etc but that certainly doesn’t make one a good, or even fair, LHR technician.
Personally, I’ve had LHR under quite a few different techs. Somme were good and some weren’t as good (at a chain place). I’ve been elsewhere having a registered nurse with (supposedly)five years of experience which gave me the lousiest treatment. Yes, I have also had a registered nurse who gave a really good treatment. Overall, I have placed a lot of confidence in someone who was an electrolygist and an LHR technician. Now, that the State changed their “law” (effective Feb 07), this person is out of luck.
I think the whole idea of relegating laser use to physicians and nurses only has to be looked at as; what’s going to help the industry overall? What’s going to finally make it reliable, duplicatable, and void of scams and false advertising?
Me personally, I was treated a few times by both a physician and ‘just a tech’, the tech did a much, much better job. The two really weren’t even comparable. The tech understood the principle, the process, and what she was trying to accomplish. And that’s where the key lies.
Legitimate hair removal methods, whether by electrolysis or laser, have very similar goals and knowledge concepts. The people that can do either successfully, know these goals and concepts. Whether they learn these things in electrology school, medical school, or on their own doesn’t matter, the point is, for fraud to be prevented, injuries to be prevented, and treatments to be successful, the states overlooking all of this need to make sure the practitioners are educated. Electrology does this, for the most part, by setting up schools. Laser has relied on industry workshops. Obviously, the states feel this wasn’t enough. The states obviously feel any education, however remotely associated to hair removal, is better than no education. The states at least will have people that have proven capacity to learn, in place of a question mark. To make an allusion, if need to entrust a high-powered laser to a person that will only get a few days of training to make it work, and you have two people to send; a nurse with a BSN, or someone with no proven ability to apply technical knowledge that has worked in the spa’s facial department smearing mud on faces, who do you go with?
Sure, I think there are some good self-taught tech out there, and maybe they should be grandfathered in if they can prove competence. But for setting up the industry to succeed in the future, this is really a necessary move, and is what the industry has to do in that there are no schools set up for this to assign it to anything lower than a BSN or MD. This is what the laser industry is going to have to endure in that they have aligned themselves more with the AMA to begin with. I seriously think that in these states, LHR is now going to turn into the plaything of MD’s. It has lost it’s independence. It’s really too bad that these electrology schools can’t step up and start two-year electrology/laser hair removal programs. That is by far the best solution. There is so much knowledge overlap within the two disciplines it seems like an educational waste. But knowing the AEA, they’re sitting there saying, ‘And what!? Side with the enemy!?’ The AEA wants it’s independence and will not go near the AMA.
The net result will be fewer LHR clinics, and at higher rates, and more seeking electrology as the only other legit alternative.
Mantaray
I’m not going to comment on which is better; a physician’s office or a non-physician’s office. Rather I would like to clarify why we are seeing a move toward limiting laser hair removal to physicians and ancillary staff under the on-site supervision of physicians across the country. I have been intimately involved in this issue for the last seven years, so this is the real story not an idle speculation.
Initially laser hair removal was begun as a “medical” device that required that it could only be sold to a licensed practitioner under the FDA. This was initially thought to mean only physicians, but that was later clarified by the FDA as to meaning that it could be any person who was licensed by the individual state to perform laser hair removal. At the same time, it was realized that laser hair removal was so safe that it could easily be performed by anyone with a modicum of training and extensive experience. What was most important was the experience of the person performing the laser hair removal and not any particular license.
In 1999 and 2000 it became apparent to many physicians in the dermatologic and plastic surgical arena that unless something was changed that laser hair removal would be taken over by non-physicians and a potentially lucrative source of income would be lost. In an effort to prevent this from happening, they decided to fight that trend through the regulatory process and use the issue of “safety” as their primary weapon. Without any real data to support their position, they commissioned a survey of their members that purported to show that there was a safety crisis occurring and that without the intervention of medical regulatory boards, that the crisis would only get worse.
They then went on a nationwide campaign to petition regulatory boards to change the rules in their state. In some cases, they have been successful. In other states their initital success was met by a push back by others. The ultimate result is still unclear. But the history of regulation in the medicine is that over time, unless there is real data to support their position, they will lose.
And there is no real data. In fact, what data there is tends to not support their position. But the real bottom line is that this entire issue is about money, turf, and the cozy relationship between physician organizations and regulatory bodies. It is essentially not about safety or what is best for the public.