Am I a Dermal Clinician or Not? By Alanna Byriel

A recent question I got asked got me thinking, thinking about a much bigger topic (we will get to that in a sec) but thinking about what I call myself and how I tell people what I do. So, the question was “what do I have to do to call myself a dermal clinician/therapist?”.

Now to give you a bit of a background, because you probably have no idea who I am! I’m Alanna, a self-confessed skin freak, clinic owner and skin education provider. Now, I have never noticed this, but I honestly never introduce myself as a “Dermal Clinician” even though that would be my technical title in my professional field, it only means something to those in my professional realm and not the average human. I have so many different qualifications, I hold a diploma in Beauty Therapy, a Bachelor of Health Science (which I studied at the University of Victoria, shameless plug there if you’re looking to study), Certificate III in advanced laser and light, Cert II in nail technology, Cert III in hair styling, Certificate II in electrolysis and I could go on but it will take up this whole article and we are busy, so let’s jump to the juicy part!

So, back to the question of “what do I have to do to call myself a dermal clinician/therapist?”. Let me give you my two cents. On my degree it states that I have a degree in dermal therapies and when I was at university our teachers referred to us as clinicians. So, I call myself a Dermal Clinician as I hold a degree. Now, here is where it gets murky! As it stands there is no award or specific title for us dermal gals to go by, so I suppose we are making it up as we go. Does it mean that I would be offended if someone who had done a huge amount of further study in skin that calls themselves this too? Absolutely not. Because at the end of the day it’s just a name, we all know what we can do and what reflects our skills. Any who, this got me thinking what I should be calling myself and to be honest NONE of my clients know what a Dermal Clinician is, they struggle to even

understand everything we do under the beauty banner. So really if I look at what I do every day I would say I’m a skin wellness coach, because that reflects how I approach and treat skin. The reason why I do skin the way I do is because of my qualifications, but they don’t define what I do every day. I have created my own version of dermal therapies which is a blend of wellness and evidence-based treatments. Now, I teach this to budding you therapists and clinicians, whether they have completed further dermal studies or not.

Now here is the other topic I said we were going to talk about “what is a Dermal Clinician?”. Here is my explanation, a Dermal Clinician is someone who has completed post graduate study in dermal therapies. They understand the anatomy and physiology of the body and cellular processes. They understand at a deeper level how the function of the body and its systems directly influence skin health and disease states. A Dermal Clinician understands how to apply research and evidence based to make informed decisions about treatment programs and homecare prescriptions. They can manage chronic skin conditions and aid in the healing process of the skin pre- and post-surgery. They have a sound knowledge of laser and light physics and know how to manipulate wavelengths and energy outputs to achieve a desired clinical end point. Finally, they are trained in disease and infection control procedures. Now, I know a lot of amazing therapists who have done extra study outside of a university who would be at this level of knowledge. So, my message to you is to call yourself what you like, at the end of the day you need to be able to communicate with your clients what you do and how you are going to be able to help them. A title means nothing at the end of the day if you don’t have the drive and determination to back it up with actions to create a real change in skin.

This is why I created Skin Freak Academy, as with anything that we learn there are some

parts of courses that are valuable and others that aren’t. I am absolutely obsessed with the human body and loved everything about the Bachelor of Health Science, BUT if you aren’t into wounds, looking at dead organs and wacky diseases it just might not be your thing. I have taken the parts of my degree that I implement every day in my clinic and teach them in my academy to bridge the gap between what we get taught in college and the advanced treatments that we do in the real world. Peels, needling and laser treatments are such highrisk services and there simply isn’t enough training provided for a therapist to be able to perform these services safely and correctly. So that’s where I come in, I teach how to do dermal therapies in an evidence based and safe way. This way my students build confidence in their ability and don’t second guess themselves when they are treating a tricky skin. Let’s face it we are only going to be seeing more and more skin conditions as our industry grows, our clients’ lives are becoming more jam packed with stress and unhealthy lifestyles. We need to be equipped with as much knowledge as possible to be able to manage their skin and get some real hands-on experience in transforming their skin, health and wellbeing. To conclude, you can call yourself whatever you like! It’s the changes that you can create with skin that will speak volumes to your skill set and the more we share and grow in this dermal space the more skin and lives we change together!

Alanna Byriel

www.skinfreakacademy.com.au