A decision to perfect her skin left Josephina Garcia with regret.
“I was just sitting at home, looking at myself in the mirror and crying,” Garcia said.
Garcia had never gotten a skin treatment before but wanted to try to decrease some of the dark spots on her face. She decided to get a laser treatment at a place recommended by a friend.
“It was just sort of like an electric shock on my face. On both sides of my face. It felt like electric shocks,” Garcia remembered.
A day later, Garcia’s skin started falling off.
“My eyes started swelling up and then my skin started bleeding,” she recalled. “It was really painful to see my face like that.”
She was left burned and scarred; damage that is going to take many future doctors visits to fix.
“I said to myself, why did I do that? And even my kids will say, your face was perfect, why did you do that?” Garcia said.
Garcia is just one of the increasing number of patients that Dr. Joyce Imahiyerobo-Ip said she is treating after they experience complications elsewhere.
“I feel like I am seeing people come in at least once a week with a burn, hyper pigmentation. Some of the complications are far more serious like they have, you know, significant burns or facial palsy even where part of their face is paralyzed from neurotoxins,” Imahiyerobo-Ip said. “Most recently I had a woman come in and she looked like she had a stroke.”
Imahiyerobo-Ip is a board-certified dermatologist. Her and other dermatologists and plastic surgeons are worried about under trained professionals doing aesthetic procedures.
In Massachusetts, you don’t need to be a dermatologist to provide aesthetic procedures. In fact, individuals do not even need to be a doctor. Nurse practitioners and estheticians can open Med Spas and other clinics as long as they have a doctor listed as the medical director to oversee the practice.
“There are just so many people who are going off on their own and opening these clinics with absolutely no supervision,” Imahiyerobo-Ip said.
7 Investigates looked into businesses that offered aesthetic procedures across the Boston area. We found often times medical directors are not listed online and when they are, rarely do they specialize in dermatology or plastic surgery. Instead, we found dentists, ER doctors and primary care physicians. At some businesses, the medical directors weren’t even based in Massachusetts.
“If there is a complication, they don’t know how to manage it and more importantly they are not adequately trained in the aesthetics that they are trying to do,” Imahiyerobo-Ip said.
The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery found 81 percent of medical spas they surveyed did not have an on-site doctor; experts believe this puts patients at risk.
The issue extends beyond the Bay State. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned about counterfeit Botox injections that sent people to the hospital earlier this year. The CDC found the injections were given by unlicensed and untrained individuals. Last summer, a woman died after receiving IV therapy from an unlicensed individual at a Med Spa in Texas.
Doctors are growing increasingly concerned about the lack of oversight at these facilities as procedures like Botox and lip filler increase in popularity.
“Aesthetics is being put in a different category to separate it from medicine, but it is medicine I am putting needles in your face, that’s medicine. When I’m using really heavy equipment that can burn you, that’s medicine,” Imahiyerobo-Ip said.
One study found 70 percent of laser surgery lawsuits involved someone who was not a doctor.
In Massachusetts, it is hard to track down how many issues arise from these procedures. Not every spa and clinic is required to be licensed by the state and there is no singular agency overseeing these types of businesses. Some doctors feel like this creates an industry with more risk than patients realize.
“We cannot compromise patient care. We cannot compromise patient safety and I think by the time they come to my office, often these patients have trauma, they are scarred, they are very hesitant to do the procedures that will fix the problem that was created and I’m just dealing with the baggage that is left over,” Imahiyerobo-Ip said.
The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery is pushing the Medical Spa Safety Act that calls on states to better regulate these spas and clinics.
As the industry struggles to come together to increase accountability, patients need to educate and protect themselves.
If you are considering any medical spa service, you should:
– Make sure a licensed doctor is based at the location and is supervising the practice.
– Ensure that licensed professionals are qualified and trained to provide treatments.
– Check out the website and reviews online.
– Ask questions about complications and how long they’ve been using specialized equipment, like lasers.
It’s a lesson Garcia had to learn the hard way.
“I feel like some people don’t care about your skin, about your feelings after the damage is done. Just do your research,” Garcia advised.
Patients can also submit complaints against individuals here: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/file-a-complaint-against-a-health-care-professional-or-facility
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