AIBU - Training as a nurse - to work in Aesthetics only!

[Wishingitwassummer]

I’ve came across this a fair few times now. Student nurses completing their nursing degrees as they want to work in aesthetics (and aesthetics only).
This is just such a waste of government funding. I’m in Scotland - so we don’t pay tuition fees and the bursary is still available.
Now I know this will only be a very small minority of people who are doing this but it just doesn’t sit right with me at all.
AIBU?

I think working for a year or two for the NHS should be mandatory

I hate this argument; it's only ever applied to healthcare.

Should all architects have to work for local authorities designing social housing for 2 years? Should all accountants have to work for charities? The list goes on.

I worked 835 unpaid hours a year in addition to my studies for my 7k bursary and was lucky to train before the bursary. So no. I don't feel I owe anyone anything.
I am working my notice for the NHS currently because after working for them for a decade and undertaking significant additional training in my own time I cannot earn enough to feed and clothe my children.
I have a problem with the aesthetic industry in general but I don't like this view of nurses at all and it's one i come across often.

@Wishingitwassummer

I’ve came across this a fair few times now. Student nurses completing their nursing degrees as they want to work in aesthetics (and aesthetics only). This is just such a waste of government funding. I’m in Scotland - so we don’t pay tuition fees and the bursary is still available. Now I know this will only be a very small minority of people who are doing this but it just doesn’t sit right with me at all. AIBU?

But all degrees are free in Scotland. So someone planning on law or banking where their aim to make a mint also get a free degree. And the bursary lays them while they are training and working in wards.

Call me old fashioned, I just thought that if you want to be a nurse, it would be to care for people.
These girls are only doing it because they HAVE to do the degree. Not because they want to.
So I guess there should be a separate qualification for this?

Perhaps the issue here then is that people like you OP, look down on aesthetics as something less than 'proper' nursing. If they were treated with the same regard then perhaps they wouldn't have to lie on their application.

Personally, I think aesthetics practitioners are often underqualified and if anything should be a doctor level of training. The person who does my fillers is. So I'm all in favour of as much qualification as possible.

The age old adage that women should 'grow old gracefully' can do one, if I want to prolong my looks then it's nobody else's business.

Trust me - they are not going to last the course if all they are interested in is making money by 'filling faces'.

It's not the typical uni student experience, it is going to lectures 8-5 and placements and shift work in the holidays for 3 years straight!

@Wishingitwassummer

**Absolutely none at all which is why I don’t get the need to be a nurse but trust me this industry is wild, the nurses are the ones pushing this.

So then I also find it interesting, that newly qualified nurses advertise their services as being performed by a nurse, as if this makes them better than say, beauticians.

A newly qualified nurse and a nurse with 20 years experience have the same amount of experience in facial anatomy but they both do the same 2-4 day course to be able to do injectables.

Also. Nurses roles are to administer care for patients in a medical or other healthcare setting. I don't see how this is different to aesthetics.

Simply caring for people is a job carried out by a care assistant. Quite a different role.

If they stick with the course and all the placements (none of which will likely be in aesthetics) then hats off to them if they still want to do aesthetics as a speciality. Maybe they will end up actually working in theatre or in plastics and help burns victims for example.

Aesthetics is a speciality like any other. What about doctors who become cosmetic surgeons? Is that deceitful too?

So then someone might book an appointment with this nurse thinking that as they are a nurse, they must be better qualified.
It seems this is not the case if they are doing the same 2-4 day course as a beautician?

Of course they will! It was bound to happen. The aesthetic business is becoming a lucrative business.
It doesn’t mean they will pass their course though. It is up to existing nurses to ensure they follow the rules and if they have not got a caring bone in their body for patients, they should not be passing through!
Boris will be delighted with his figures though!

ok h and as for your “these girls” comments OP - it’s 2021, not all nurses are “girls”. And even the ones that are female don’t need to be referred to in such a patronising tone. Why don’t you get back to your Daily Mail and Bring Back Mateon campaign!

Potentially yes. However the theory is that the nurses have a better idea of what to do if something goes wrong such as anaphylaxis or infection

I personally think the bursary should have to be repaid if you don't complete 10 years service in the NHS (with exemptions for ill health etc).

The ones who I have seen on Facebook/Instagram are girls. This is why I said this.
I didn’t think calling someone a girl (who is a girl) was patronising. I do apologise.

@Bramblesr
I didn’t think of that actually, this is true they would perhaps be better at spotting infection.

But they don't have to do the degree. Doing nursing purely to work in aesthetics is bat shit. And stupid as you don't need to be a nurse?!

A girl is a child. A female over 18 is an adult woman. A qualified nurse is 21 maybe an old 20. Not a girl

@HarrysChild quite!

I don't see OP complaining about doctors who have gone into aesthetics. Presumably because they think thats probably a man doing it... The 1950s called, they want your opinion back!

@FeelingSoGrinchy
At the moment you don’t have to be a nurse. But I think they are pushing for it to become a regulated industry and this would stop beauticians/hairdressers etc from doing it (legally, anyway).

Should electricians, mechanics, beauty therapists, hairdressers etc pay the college back when they set up their own business? I'm a nurse and to be honest am not going to go down this route. I've researched it as a way to earn my fortune but the market is saturated. At the hospital I work at there are dozens of nurses and doctors doing it, all undercutting each other on price. Most of us would rather just do extra shifts in the hospital anyway.

As I said previously, I don’t have an issue with people having it as a side business. Crack on.
Wasting government funding to do aesthetics? Not so much.

OP there isn't going to be demand for this many aestheticians, so calm down. These business won't last.
The bigger issue is why aren't nurses paid what they're worth?

Oh absolutely. I work with nurses, I agreed wholeheartedly that they should be paid more. Worth their weight in gold.