Practical training is at the core of Amabilis Academy. Here a student is supervised by Dr Ketil Olsholt.
Education Profile of the Month, Norway
Challenging the low standards of aesthetic medicine training Aesthetic medicine is an industry that has been rapidly growing over the last two decades. Botox and fillers have become more and more accessible. But for a long time, there was not much training required for those who wished to practise aesthetic medicine.
He saw that the quality of the courses was far too poor for the students to work with patients on their own. Despite the students being medical professionals, the training they received was not good enough. “The customers would not have gotten injections if they knew how little competence a practitioner could have,” he says.
By Hanna Margrethe Enger
Doctor Ove André Bjerkan, medical and academic director at Amabilis Academy, started out working for a pharmaceutical company that produced Botox and fillers. This was the gateway to working in aesthetic medicine. “The only way to enter the industry was through courses held by the pharmaceutical manufacturers,” Dr Bjerkan explains. “They offered one-day curses for big groups, with little practical 90
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Issue 162
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January 2024
training.” The pharmaceutical companies’ goal was to sell products, training came second.
Each day begins with a lecture in aesthetic medicine.
Dr Bjerkan believed that both the students wishing to make a career change and their future patients deserved bet-