Why Nurses Are Moving to Aesthetic Medicine

Are you one of the many direct care nurses coping with the epidemic of chronic stress and burnout that’s rampant in the profession today? These workplace conditions can certainly make you question your career choice and consider changing professions. Unfortunately, a steep road awaits nurses who exit the medical field entirely. They must spend time and money pursuing the education necessary for a new career. And once they graduate, they must compete with younger or more experienced candidates.

The good news is that you don’t have to walk away from nursing to rediscover happiness in your profession. If you’re still passionate and ambitious when it comes to working in the medical field, consider pivoting to a different sector of health care: aesthetic medicine!

Nurses who opt to put their skills to use in a different, less stressful nursing specialty need only to build on their current competencies rather than pursue new and extensive training. They avoid the dramatic career interruption that comes with a pivot to a non-nursing field and won’t be pushed to the back of the line when competing for employment opportunities. 

If you’re interested in making the transition to aesthetic medicine, read on for everything you need to know. 

Aesthetic Medicine: An Alternative and Antidote to the Pressures of Direct Care Nursing 

Aesthetic medicine seems almost custom-designed to function as an alternative and antidote to the challenges of bedside nursing. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of aesthetic nursing: 

• Regular weekday hours are the norm, allowing cosmetic nurses to enjoy a more traditional work-life balance. 
• Practitioners are free and encouraged to exercise their best medical judgment.
• Work environments are deliberately designed to be upscale and inviting. 
• Office politics are reduced as complex hierarchies are no longer present.
• Medical aesthetics are elective procedures, so insurance isn’t part of the equation.
• Aesthetics practitioners experience a renewed sense of inspiration and newfound satisfaction in caring for patients without the constraints of managed care.

Why Nurses Are Making the Switch

Up to 70% of nurses report being so burned out and unhappy in their careers that they’re considering moving into adjacent healthcare sectors or hanging up their scrubs for good. Managed care models, hospital bureaucracies and conventional clinical practice often get in the way of delivering high-quality care. Managed care, in particular, has a way of turning the healing arts and the close relationship between caregivers and patients into a cold, transactional, increasingly automated and impersonal affair. The confines of managed care dehumanize patients and those attempting to care for them. 

It’s no surprise that many nurses are weary of working within these models and everything that comes with them: 

• Long hours, unpredictable shifts, and the frequent need to work weekends and holidays
• The expectation to assume an increasing number of responsibilities without commensurate pay or support
• Reductions in the right to exercise professional judgment and personal autonomy due to inflexible, “paint-by-numbers” approaches to patient care
• Imbalanced nurse-to-patient ratios, with both nurses and patients getting the short end of the stick
• Work environments characterized by aesthetic sterility that are not exactly warm and welcoming
• Excessive office politics generated by the dizzying layers of hierarchy that constitute the institutional practice of medicine
• Having to navigate the complexities, if not indignities, of working with insurance companies
• The feeling of having lost their passion and finding that although they love their profession, they’re increasingly dissatisfied with their job

Start Your New Career

How Aesthetic Medicine Training Can Elevate Your Nursing Career

Let’s get to the fun stuff — how exactly aesthetics training and cosmetic nursing will boost your career!

You’ll Enter a Hot Market

The global market for medical aesthetics is booming. Driven by pandemic-related trends that have normalized virtual work environments, market analysts are documenting record-breaking demand for aesthetic procedures. (The market forecast for medical aesthetics has a projected 2027 value of $23.4 billion!) With the market for medical aesthetics being hotter than ever, now is a lucrative time to add aesthetics training to your resume. 

You’ll Enjoy Higher Career Satisfaction

Because aesthetic medicine represents the intersection of art and science, it can breathe new life into your work and result in higher career satisfaction. A cosmetic nursing career that lets you apply principles from both the hard and soft sciences can lend greater depth and dimension to your practice and boost your professional fulfillment.

You’ll Have More Job Options

The more competitive you are as a job candidate, the more job options become available to you. When you acquire new medical skills outside your current area of specialization, you instantly become more marketable. Even if you have no intention of pursuing a complete career pivot into aesthetic medicine, adding Botox certification to your resume signals to potential employers that you are a versatile and proactive job candidate. 

You’ll Experience Enhanced Job Security

In the world of finance, a diversified investment portfolio is the key to mitigating risk and creating greater financial stability. But this principle also applies to your resume. When you diversify your skillset with medical aesthetics training, you can rely on enhanced job security in the face of market downturns, industry slumps or unexpected issues with cash flow.

You’ll Cultivate More Human Relationships With Your Patients

The efficiency-driven managed care model dominating conventional medical facilities and clinics may lead nurses and patients to feel like they are cogs in a giant, impersonal machine. Because aesthetic medicine is practiced outside the managed care model, it promotes a more personal, caring relationship between providers and patients. 

You’ll Be Free From Office Politics

The managed care model is intrinsically bureaucratic and constituted by complex hierarchical relationships. This means that hospital or conventional clinical environments are often characterized by departmental tensions and other forms of office politics that can take a toll on the morale of nursing staff. But again, because aesthetic procedures are performed in settings largely free from bureaucratic stressors, aesthetic nurses can look forward to much less politically fraught work environments. 

You’ll Thrive in a Healthier Work Environment

When you pivot to a career in aesthetic medicine, more than the mental and emotional aspects of your work environment tend to become healthier. Almost all aesthetic procedures are performed on healthy patients, which means a medically healthier work environment overall. Moreover, because medical aesthetics offices are typically pleasant and appealing, the mood-boosting effects of working in this kind of setting can be significant. 

You’ll Find Greater Professional Autonomy

Despite the rise of “precision” approaches, conventional medicine can quickly devolve into a paint-by-numbers affair. While there can be some excellent reasons for this, it leaves little room for professional autonomy. Aesthetics procedures, however, must be customized to each patient, so nurses enjoy more freedom in exercising their own best judgment as guided by robust standards of practice.

You’ll Discover Entrepreneurial Opportunities

For nurses with an entrepreneurial itch to scratch, Botox certification can open the doors to building an aesthetics-focused business. Even if you don’t dream of working exclusively for yourself, aesthetics training can provide a platform for various side businesses for cosmetic nursing that can supplement your primary clinical practice.

Nurses Who Make the Move to Aesthetic Medicine Enjoy Even More Benefits 

In addition to the benefits above, nurses who choose to advance their career through a shift into aesthetic medicine can look forward to many other perks: 

• • They can complete the requisite training (Botox and dermal filler certification) in a fraction of the time and cost required for a shift to most other nursing specialties. 

• • They can often supplement or expand their existing nursing practice with aesthetic medicine, easing the transition (should they pursue it) to a full-time, dedicated career in this specialty.

• • They’re not forced to choose between their love of working directly with patients and seeking relief and advancement outside of direct care settings. 

• • They escape the managed care system since aesthetic medicine is comprised of elective procedures for which insurance reimbursement is rarely available. 

• • They’re no longer locked in a strictly numbers-driven enterprise since aesthetic medicine is one part art and one part science.

Start With Botox and Dermal Filler Training 

So, switching to aesthetic medicine is an excellent option for nurses who want to advance their careers but are burnt out from direct care. But how exactly do you get your feet wet? Botox and dermal filler training are accessible gateways into aesthetic medicine for four reasons: 

1. Currently, licensed RNs already possess the credentials, medical background and skill set needed to advance their career in aesthetic medicine.
2. Thanks to this foundation, RNs can learn to safely and skillfully perform Botox and dermal filler injections in a relatively short time. 
3. Compared to more invasive or technology-intensive aesthetics services such as cosmetic surgery and laser therapies that require advanced and extensive training, hospital privileges and investment in expensive equipment, injectables come with extremely low adoption costs and overhead. 
4. Registered nurses already have existing relationships with current patients, making it much easier to identify their target audience for aesthetic services and generate demand for them.

Let AAAMS Help You Beat Burnout and Advance Your Career

The American Association of Aesthetic Medicine and Surgery (AAAMS) is the industry-leading, fully-accredited training platform for excellence in aesthetic medicine education. We make it possible to become rapidly certified in Botox and dermal filler with a curriculum as streamlined and engaging as it is rigorous and challenging with our Aesthetics 101 courses, offered in both a hybrid and virtual format.

We’ve seen firsthand the winning difference a career pivot into aesthetic medicine can make on our students’ mental and emotional health and professional upward mobility. Watching our students become reinspired about their nursing careers as they take steps to recover the work-life balance denied to them in direct care settings is one of the most gratifying things about our work.

We know that pivoting into a new specialty can sometimes feel both exciting and uncertain, and that’s why we created the AAAMS Aesthetics Network. It’s a professional platform for networking that helps you meet other health care practitioners who are seeking a fresh start in aesthetic medicine, as well as seasoned aesthetics practitioners. It also connects you to mentorship opportunities, a wealth of exclusive learning resources, invitations to industry events, job referrals and listings, and much more.

When you train with AAAMS, you’ll feel supported throughout your aesthetics journey. You’ll enter your new cosmetic nursing specialty feeling well-networked with other industry practitioners, confident in your skills and inspired for a new chapter. Reach out to AAAMS today to discover what makes us industry leaders, explore our aesthetic courses and get started on your latest and greatest career adventure.