MedAesthetics Training Review

1. CME Accreditation for MD, DO, NP, PA, RN’s  (Score 5 out of 10)

The word “certification” is used prominently by this training program, yet it has no formal legal meaning.  It just means receipt of a piece of paper.  The standard for post-graduate education is CME or CEU-accredited training that is peer reviewed and backed by an organization called a “joint sponsor” who is authorized to award AMA Category 1 Credits which are the only credits accepted for physicians, NP’s, PA’s and nurses.

MedAestheticsTraining.com states that courses are approved for CME credits backed by the American Academy of Family Practice (AAFP).  However, when searching the AAFP for “MedAestheticsTraining” only one single event appeared, which was a class in Miami for 8.25 credit “advanced” course, not the 9.75 credits that the website touts for these basic events.  They overstate their credits and not all cities/events may have credits officially registered.  Moreover, AAFP forbids breaks and lunch counting toward credit hours yet the basic course agenda shows a total meeting time of 9.75 hours including breaks and lunch.

In addition, AAFP credit has no reciprocity for dentists, and dentists cannot teach AAFP courses but this company uses numerous dentists on faculty and touts that dentists can take these courses for credit.

2. Faculty Qualifications and Transparency (Score 3 out of 10)

In one huge improvement over AMET, this splinter company chooses to name the instructors for each training date on their website.  While that earns them points, read on for the larger issues here.

It is crucial to know the qualifications of the person teaching you, but also to make sure that your training is not occurring in a crime scene, where a visiting faculty member is not even licensed in the state of the course, leaving the attendees who are, liable for treatments inside that training class.

The same person, Mayra Crespo, a Nurse practitioner who teaches for AMET and is based and licensed in New Jersey is listed teaching courses for Medaesthetics Training in states where she has no licensure.  Moreover, a dentist licensed in Colorado is teaching courses in Florida where a license search revealed nothing.  A NP in Florida is teaching in Tennessee where she has no license either, but their NP in Tennessee (but only licensed in Mississippi) teaches in Georgia.  Nowhere is it stated in these states where NP’s do not have full authority, who the MD physician is overseeing the class.  But why should they bother if the NP is not even licensed?  Even one of their DO instructors who is listed to teach a course in North Carolina is not even licensed there.  This shows that this non-medical run company has zero respect for ensuring that medical care is delivered only by people licensed in the state.  In fact, most of their courses are taught by people  who are completely unlicensed where they are teaching.  One of the most important things you can learn when becoming an aesthetic provider is good judgment.  That seems to be lacking here.

Please note, that while some RN’s have multistate licenses, there are no NP multistate licenses. Therefore, anyone functioning on a multistate license is doing so as an RN.  RN’s cannot design treatments or administer medication in a teaching setting legally in any state without local physician supervision.

It is dangerous to take a training course where …

☠️ You outrank the instructor (MD taught by NP, NP taught by RN) or are taught by someone who has zero medical relationship to you (dentists teaching RN’s and NP’s).  How many faculty members in your nursing or medical school were dentists?

☠️ The instructor is NOT LICENSED where they are teaching.

☠️ They recruit models from the community who pay to receive treatment (see more below).  So basically they are soliciting PAID (not volunteer) medical treatment performed by unlicensed personnel.  This is a for profit crime scene.  Not education.

It is quite sad when non-medical people and private equity look to medical education as a “business opportunity”.  They have no idea what they are doing and your tuition dollar gets eroded while they take their cut.  They get 3 points for transparency, and zero for everything else.

3. Completeness of the First Level Course.  (Score 3 out of 10)

It is difficult enough to calculate the cost of training when factoring in your time commitment and travel.  However, when training is incomplete, or you have no idea how much hands-on experience is guaranteed, that makes it even harder.

The standard here is to teach everything that is FDA-cleared and off-label indications that work in the level 1 course.  This includes using the most concentrated dilution for Botox.  Their basic toxin and filler course outline looks complete if not a bit ambitious for a class of 8 providers with one instructor meeting for only 3.5 hours of didactic time prior to hands-on.  Their online agenda shows only 9.75 hours of contact time but breaks and lunch cannot count toward official credit hours (per AAFP accreditation rules), so they are overstating their true live credits.  They have an entire advanced class solely devoted to lips and therefore, are omitting information about lips in the basic class. Full training will require everyone to spend well over $3,500 just for the basic training to treat what 90% of patients want and need.  And none of that $3500+ includes a drop of BTX or filler for you to inject.  Another issue is with their “advanced” toxin courses which are completely lacking any detail about what is taught.  Since we don’t know what is being withheld for the “advanced” toxin course, we can never be really sure about the completeness of the basic course.  Every training provider that offers advanced courses withholds information from the main course to protect their other profit centers.  For more information please check out this video.

4. Transparency Regarding Hands-On Product Provided in Tuition Cost. (Score 0 out of 5)

Nowhere do they guarantee how much actual product you will get to inject under supervision. An $1,895 course is not cheap when there is no toxin or filler included for you to inject in the tuition.

The industry standard is to provide a certain amount of toxin and filler for hands-on use UP FRONT and include it in the tuition price.  At these tuition prices, real US-sourced product should be included.  However Medaestheticstraining recruits patients from each local area to purchase the toxin and filler that you will be using on them.  This makes your treatment of them “work for hire” and has a much higher medical liability risk than treating a volunteer in an educational environment.  Moreover, if the instructor, who should be named on the consent form as the treating provider is not licensed where she teaches, even more problems can arise.  You can and will be liable for civil and possible criminal damages if a patient is injured.  They even have the nerve to reassure patients while recruiting them for paid treatments, while never mentioning licensure or follow-up care.

Moreover, if you specifically want experience to do certain areas, you should be able to bring a friend or relative to get a free treatment while you practice those areas and can follow her results.  That does not happen at Medaesthetictraining.  Because recruiting paid models is a main profit center for them, you have no idea what kind of hands-on experience you will get.  They even have the nerve to hook patients on “memberships” to generate more revenue on the back of their own student’s labor.  Patients are also charged a $75 non-refundable deposit.  This is the type of transactional garbage pushed by non-medical ownership that is destroying the practice of medicine.

Here in their own words from their FAQ page regarding the treatments patients receive:  

•  Follow-up visit(s) will be necessary to complete treatment. Follow-up visits will be the responsibility of the model to see a provider of his/her choosing. Any additional costs in the follow-up visits will be the responsibility of the model).

• Avoid if you value your time, money, appearance and sanity. I attended a training course as a model at the beginning of the year & received two syringes of filler. Two students worked on my face, there was zero supervision and the right hand had absolutely no concept of what the left hand was doing.
  Three days later, I found myself in the ER with severe bruising, some of which was up under my hairline *that’s not how cheek filler works*, contact dermatitis and an infection on the left side of my face. Don’t even get me started on the asymmetry I have to look at in the mirror on a daily basis.
  The company agreed to compensate me via a provider of my choice. I work unconventional hours & chose a provider who could accommodate my schedule. The provider went back & forth with them due to having issues cashing the check. I wrote & requested they cancel the check, stating I would need to find another provider. This has proven difficult as, see above. No response from them.
  Six months later, I am done with this project & see no reason why they refuse to compensate me directly. I paid for a service & have been left with nothing but pain, stress & medical bills. I’m in the midst of speaking with an attorney, which upon reflection, is what I should have done in the first place.

Issues cashing the check?  Is this company solvent?  AND This case shows a complete lack of screening and oversight.  A patient like this should not be done in a training course, yet they took her money….

5. Maximum Hands-On Class Size (2 out of 5)

Looking at social media photos and other images available online, it appears that classes may be as large as 8 students per provider.  This is too large for a single day training to fully cover the patient selection and didactics in addition to enough one-on-one hands-on.

6. Location Transparency (Score 3 out of 3)

Location is mentioned for each course date.  Curiously, almost all sites are hotels.  Even when a faculty member is teaching in the same location as her practice, they use a hotel for training.  Perhaps the classes are too large to be held in a clinical office environment.

7. No Fake Boards, Fake Society, or Membership Upsells (Score 3 out of 5)

Memberships, renewals and such are not required for any kind of training status over the long-term.  Training is training.  Aesthetics is not a medical specialty.  Medaestheticstraining is not an authority for an industry.  They are a for-profit training center that offers single day education courses.  That is all.

They do sell advanced courses and encourage providers to call themselves “advanced” injectors after this, but do not offer paid memberships.  They do have a “shop” where the sell massively overpriced “kits” with a decapper and syringes at over a 50% markup in a travel case.  This makes one believe they encourage trainees to do procedures in homes, which is extremely risky and not covered by your liability insurance.

Hilariously they offer a $9 item that they call an insulated botulinum toxin container.  It is a jello shot glass that can be purchased on Amazon for $2.50.

8. Offers a Blended Online plus Live Learning Environment (Score 0 out of 5)

They have a few video courses for sale that are unaccredited and not supplied with the tuition for any course.  Therefore, every attendee shows up “cold” to the live event.

However, based on the class sizes seen in pictures, it would not be possible to fully learn the ambitious agenda for that many people to have a proper review of the online material, Q&A, patient evaluations, and perform one-on-one treatments in under 4 hours for both toxin and fillers prior to hands-on.  

Having materials to review before, during and after hands-on results in the best education and enduring learning of a new procedure.

9. No Risk of Paid Models at the Live Training (Score:  0 of 2)

You are paying a lot of money for this training.  You do not expect your training company to also profit by taking money from unvetted and unexamined patients in the community to then serve as your patient for your first treatment.  They prominently advertise for paid patients at the top of their home page, take money in advance and have the nerve for an out of market unlicensed provider oversee the treatment.

It is a recipe for disaster and has resulted in more than one unassuming nurse or NP getting sued when treating a stranger out of state.

When you treat someone who pays to be there, you establish a provider-patient relationship with them.  You could get sued.  And patients who pay for a treatment (not volunteer) have higher expectations and less tolerance for bad outcomes.  Moreover, if your instructor is an RN and you are higher level, you are responsible for that outcome.  This is also true of NP instructors in states where they do not have full practice authority and/or are not licensed.  Don’t take these risks.

10. General Truthfulness and Accessibility  (Score: 2 of 5)

Their possible mission to be a kinder version of AMET does show some improvements here.  Location and Faculty transparency is evident.  However that is not enough to recommend the training due to the deal-breaking risks above.

Final Score:  21 out of a possible 50 

Final Recommendation… There are better alternatives where you might have to drive a little longer to get a smaller group, taught by a true expert who is licensed in the state and you get the full CME credit, even for the online part of your course.