Guide to finding the best injectable clinic
Before you get your dermal filler or anti wrinkle injections, do as much research as you can. Here’s a guide to help you choose the best cosmetic injectables clinic for you.
How long has the injector been injecting full time?
The longer the better, really. We agree with Malcolm Gladwell here, that 10,000 hours is a pretty good start. Read between the lines, as so many clinics find sneaky ways of disguising the limited reality.
How long has the injector been at their current practice?
Stability is a beautiful thing in a medical service provider.
How long has the practice been established?
Again, this speaks to trustworthiness, stability and reputation. The longer the better.
How many injectable treatments do they perform per year?
A great answer would be in the many thousands.
Is the clinic team dedicated to continuing medical education?
Does the clinic perform any other type of medicine/surgery?
If so, this will affect how much cosmetic medicine and injectables they perform.
eg surgeon performing injectables one day per week, would take a long time to become proficient in injecting.
Ask about complications and their management
Be wary of those who claim a history of no complications. If an injector does enough procedures, they will unfortunately come across the more rare complications. As Napoleon Bonaparte said, “He that makes war without many mistakes has not made war very long”
Make sure the clinic provides the option for the type of aesthetic that you’re looking for.
Try looking at the clinic website for before and after photos of their work on patients, and to meet the injectors and have a discussion.
Study their website with a critical eye.
Is it a good clinic if they are ranking front page on Google for injectable search terms like “dermal filler Sydney” or have a large Instagram following?
Not necessarily, being front page of google indicates that they are good at SEO, or pay a lot to someone who is good at SEO! Having a large legitimate following on Instagram means they are good at content creation or pay someone who is, or have advertised heavily.
Having a fake large following on social media platforms is possible for anyone. A good clue would be to see if there are a lot of press articles on the clinic with the large following. A clinic who has a legitimately large following will in general also have a lot of press articles referencing them, if they don’t, it is a clue that there’s something fishy going on.
Is it a good clinic if they have celebrities or influencers or are featured in magazines?
Not necessarily, these may be paid marketing and PR activities.
Call up and have a discussion with their reception staff:
This gives you such an idea about the clinic and their focus. Do they value you as a potential client. Are they interested in helping you and sharing information? Most staff at cosmetic clinics are there for a reason, which is that THEY LOVE THE FIELD OF AESTHETICS, so they should be willing and able to share a lot of valuable information.
Check out the appearance and function and systems of the staff and the clinic:
Do aesthetics matter? Are the staff overdone? Are the staff underdone? Is the clinic neat, clean, tidy and functional? Are there good systems in place? All of these clues will give you an idea about whether you are going to get the service at the level that you expect.
Check out the website of the clinic:
- Is it all stock photos?
- Is it clear who the people are who are involved with the clinic?
- Is there a landline or is it just a mobile number?
Online Reviews
I would definitely recommend checking these out, albeit with a sophisticated approach, which acknowledges the facts that:
1. Reviews may be solicited or inauthentic and
2. The occasional negative review should be expected. Please note that, like in other fields, attempted extortion exists using reviews in the cosmetic medical industry, unfortunately.
Ask your friends, relatives and service providers:
Your hairdresser is a great place to start! They talk all day long about such things and have access to a large number of clients. This approach still has limitations, but these professionals can be a great resource. Be wary of asking anyone with a financial interest in beauty/cosmetic as this may influence what they recommend. Eg if you are asking a beauty therapist who has a laser device, they will often not want to refer to a clinic with a lot of laser devices as they see them as a competitor.
Have a consultation or two:
Cosmetic treatments should never be hurried. Meet with a couple of clinics, get their opinions about what they think would be good for your face.
Make sure the clinic is acting within the law:
Check the registrations of the doctors and nurses. AHPRA is a great resource for this.
Little / Big Clues to a clinic being dodgy or reputable:
Things like:
- Is the treatment at an established cosmetic clinic or at a hair salon? Obviously a medical clinic is the correct place to be having a medical treatment
- Is the treatment at a GP clinic or a cosmetic clinic? If at a GP clinic or dentist, then this may mean that general practice, or dentistry, rather than cosmetic medicine is what the practitioner has experience in and spends more of their days on.
- Has the clinic owner had other clinics which have gone bankrupt?
- Is the doctor responsible for your treatment listed on the website. Is their full name provided?
- Is the owner deregistered, or have they been previously? This is never an ideal situation, and the details of the deregistration should be studied.
- Check the pricing. Be careful of the (lack of) aftercare, safety, trustworthiness of those clinics/injectors with too good to be true pricing. It is your face we are talking about here, look after it carefully.
- If the nurse/doctor has testimonials on their website, this is illegal in Australia. Any illegal activity should raise a red flag.
The proof is in the pudding:
In the end it is the whole service including the results that matter, and you won’t know this until you go through with a treatment. For safety’s sake, feel free to start slow, so that the level of trust can build and so that the injector can get to know you.
My last hot tips to help you get the best out of your cosmetic injector:
Educate yourself about cosmetic treatments if you are interested, get as much information as you find useful. If you’re more of an image person rather than copy, look up google images e.g. before and after images for procedures that you’re considering. Look up online what can go wrong with procedures that you’re having.
As your cosmetic injectors, we are trying to create an image out of your words, sometimes this can be difficult. This is where images are so useful. Images of photos you don’t like of yourself, images of old photos of yourself when you were happiest with your appearance.. Images of the size and shape of lips/nose/cheeks you like. These things can be really helpful to improving communication and results.
Listen to your injector. Often a patient will be fixated on an area, that just doesn’t have a high satisfaction rate when treated, the injector will explain this and offer great alternatives for making the patient more beautiful, but the patient cannot move on from the difficult area. Your injector, if experienced, is trying to talk you out of certain procedures for a reason.
I hope this guide was helpful:)
xx Dr Naomi
