Medical aesthetics community “outraged” over beauticians’ human head dissection course

The aesthetics industry has taken to social media to voice its concerns over a course offering training to beauty therapists using cadaver dissection.  

The story, which centres around training company Cosmetic Couture and its director Maxine McCarthy, was broken by the Safety in Beauty Campaign after a YouTube video was posted about the two-day course, which ran at Newcastle University in December. The video has since been removed but not before causing a media storm and backlash from physicians over beauty therapists using cadavers for training and subsequently offering injectable treatments.

Founder of Safety in Beauty, Antonia Mariconda, said, “You only have to look at the stories generated daily online to see the percentage of badly qualified and non medically qualified ‘practitioners’ carrying out substandard and potentially hazardous work to vulnerable people.

 “The video has led to outrage amongst the medical community who feel insulted that the video carries statements made by McCarthy such as “beauticians are actually low claims risk” – The Safety in Beauty Campaign disagrees with this statement completely and has substantial data to refute this claim, just because a beautician has not claimed for a botched procedure via an insurance company does not mean that botched procedures are not happening daily!

“The Safety in Beauty Organisation believes that only medically qualified professionals should carry out invasive injectable cosmetic treatments such as botox and cosmetic fillers, we believe that if a person is not qualified to deal with a potentially serious complication then they should not carry out a treatment.”

Dr David Eccleston commented, “I am ashamed that we are the only country that allows this to happen. Beauty therapists may have skills and knowledge, but do not spend years at University studying pathology, anatomy, pharmacology and psychiatry, followed by further postgraduate supervision and training before being allowed to work within their chalet field of expertise.

“This is dangerous for patients, and for the industry. We are already a European laughing stock. For beauty therapists to claim they are a lower risk, and for them to accuse doctors of being more money oriented than them is outrageous.

“There is no excuse for legal loopholes being exploited to provide medical procedures and putting patients at risk as a result. If you want to do cosmetic medical procedures, go to medical school or do a postgraduate nursing qualification.”

Newcastle University was keen to point out that, although the course was held at their campus, it was not organised by or associated with them. They claimed that they just rented out training space to a third party – Allied Health Professionals.