Working in cosmetic surgery is a very demanding and competitive industry. You have to be an artist and an academic at the same time.
The practical skills needed include very good hand to eye co-ordination and visuospatial awareness, which is the ability to identify various objects and the spaces between them.
It’s a very specialised area of medicine and you have to spend about 14 years in school before you can be fully certified. You then of course have the options of going into private practise or working for the NHS. Both routes are lifechanging for people wanting to invest in surgery for themselves.
How to know if it’s the career for you?
The first step along your decision making process should be to decide if you are willing to put the hard work in. Is this something that you’re willing to spend all you time and energy into pursuing.
The path starts in high school, taking advanced classes in anatomy, biology, chemistry and physics. Along with maths to ensure your can understand calculating medical dosages and reading graphs. A foreign language can open you up to new places to work and study and of course Latin, to understand the unfamiliar medical terms.
Interviewing a practising cosmetic surgeon can also help you to decide on whether you are making the right decision. They can give you better expectations on what to expect on the day to day and what the most challenging parts of the job are.
University is the next step, graduating in courses that are based on science and biology structures can help to set you up for med school. Things like biochemistry, microbiology and human anatomy are a good base, along with courses in English, statistics and advances mathematics.
While also finishing and excelling at the education side of things, it is also important to be gaining experience that will set you apart from other applicants, this will show that you are serious about what you want to achieve and have put yourself in the best position possible. It shows that you have the ethics and the drive behind you in order to succeed.
Once you’ve gone through these stages there is then medical school and residency, which are 4 and 5 years respectively. The next steps after residency are then to become board certified and then any specialized routes you may want to go down, like reconstructive surgery, aesthetic and cosmetic plastic surgery, paediatric plastic surgery.
