Erasmus MC to offer cosmetic surgery course

Erasmus MC’s Dermatology department is to start offering a cosmetic procedures course. Dermatologists taking the Erasmus MC Aesthetics course will receive six months’ training in administering botox injections and laser treatment.

Cosmetic surgery shares much common ground with dermatology, in that most procedures are applied to the skin. Until now, cosmetic surgery has never been taught as part of a dermatology study. Erasmus MC’s Aesthetics course looks set to change this.

Research component, as well

From now on, medical school graduates will be able to train as dermatologists specialising in aesthetic medicine. Dermatologists who are already working at their own practices will be able to attend a post-graduate course.

In addition to teaching the aforementioned course, MC Aesthetics will also carry out scientific research into the techniques employed in cosmetic dermatology treatments and into skin ageing in general.

It will not be the first time cosmetic procedures will be taught at a Dutch academic medical centre. Since 2010, Groningen has had a private aesthetic surgery clinic (affiliated with the local university) which provides breast enlargement and face-lifts, among other things. Meanwhile, Amsterdam’s AMC is involved in a training course for cosmetic doctors.

Criticism

According to De Volkskrant, other hospitals are critical of Erasmus MC’s new course. Peter van de Kerkhof, a professor of dermatology at Nijmegen’s Radboud University, went so far as to call a similar course at Nijmegen ‘undesirable’: ‘Here [in Nijmegen], we train doctors so that they can heal people or prevent diseases.’