A Lifetime of Service to Aesthetics
Trish
Hey listeners, welcome to the Transforming Bodies podcast and a big welcome to our new season. Now I thought I’d start today off with our new season, starting off with something completely different. I am actually here with Tina Viney today. I’m really honoured to be joined by one of the true pioneers of Australian aesthetics, and that’s Tina Viney. Now Tina Viney for more than 50 years, she’s dedicated her career to advancing professional standards, education, innovation, and excellence within the aesthetics sector. Her passion for the industry, combined with her commitment to supporting practitioners, and also her generosity in sharing her knowledge. Now these are the things that have made her one of the most respected and influential figures in Australian aesthetics today. Just recently, Tina was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia, the OAM recognising her significant contribution and lifelong body of work within the aesthetics profession. Now this prestigious honour not only celebrates Tina’s personal achievements, but it also shines a spotlight on the importance and evolution of our industry. Now today we’re gonna be talking about what this recognition means, the opportunities and challenges that are facing clinics today, and also where Tina sees the future of aesthetics heading into the years ahead. So Tina, welcome to the Transforming Bodies podcast.
Tina
Thank you, Trish, it’s my pleasure.
Trish
Oh look, we’re so delighted to have you here, now look, first of all, congratulations on receiving the, the Medal of Order of Australia, so, for those who may not understand the significance of this award, can you explain what the, OAM that we call it represents and how the process works and what it, what it’s meant to you personally to be recognised, for your contribution to the aesthetics industry after more than 50 years of service.
Tina
Well, I have, yeah, I’ve been 35 years in governance. I’ve been in the industry for over 50 years, but the recognition, this is a recognition, it’s different to other awards in that there’s a lot of award programs that are commercially driven and, you know, they are businesses and they do attract people to present their standards. They have a value in that regard that in order to apply, you have to demonstrate what you’ve done and it’s a good opportunity for business to review their performance and to really measure what they’ve done, so it’s based on a lot of personal effort. With the recognition that I’ve got, it is in a totally different league. It’s not so much a win, it’s actually a recognition. So basically, the criteria is very, very different. What they do is they have a panel, the honours panel, and it’s very, very objective, so they, someone can nominate, you can’t get involved at all. So there’s, it’s totally unbiased, so they then examine different people that knew you, they want reports about you and then they do their own research and it takes a very, very long time. For example, to examine me has taken 3 years, so it’s not something that happens instantly. There is a very, very strict criteria of how they determine, and the objective, one of the key objectives of these awards is that, they want to recognise people that have done above and beyond what they, were paid to do, and also that they have served their community in some ways in a sacrificial way. So I have to say, what I’ve done, I wasn’t paid for it. I didn’t have a job description, what I have, let me just go back to the industry. The industry has practitioners, practitioners’ focus is on making sure they understand the client or the patient, their needs, and they’re very micro focused on shifting, making positive changes to that person.
So it’s very much a micro, focused activity and even business coaches will measure things up against what your client wants. There is another perspective which is the macro perspective, and macro perspectives change the trajectory of an industry because they look at the global position of the movements that are happening that shift and change trends and also, dramatically change, an industry. So back in the beginning of the 1990s, I remember back then there was plastic, there’s plastic surgeons and there were, you know, dermatologists, but then we started to see cosmetic physicians taking up laser, when lasers started to come into Australia. The, the cosmetic physicians saw the opportunity to do laser resurfacing, so they approached salons and said, look, if you’ve got people with sun damage or, you know, and you’ve done what you can, we would love to take them on and do our treatments, so that they had very strong peels that they worked with, and there was a real interest in, in this area and a lot of GPs were entering the cosmetic medical field.
Now, what we noticed is that once they’ve finished with that patient, they wouldn’t return them back to the clinic, to the salon, or clinic, whatever it was, and, and so we are, I was president of the APAA at the time, so I was very much into interviewing the, the trends and the shifts that were happening, but also I’m very much a futurist, visionary, so I have the capacity to see things that other people don’t see. So I saw, I saw this trend and I thought, now this is an interesting shift, so I explored it. And we had a meeting at one of the expos, and we had a conference within the event, and we invited, doctors, plastic surgeons, cosmetic physicians to share about a potential collaboration between non-medical and medical, and the challenges we experienced was that, they felt it was not possible to really collaborate on the one patient because if they were doing a procedure that like, with laser resurfacing, it it’s quite an extensive procedure, it burns the skin, so there’s gotta be a healing process, and the challenge was, we can’t give our patient back to the salon that gave us that person because we don’t trust the level of education that you have. You don’t have wound healing, you don’t have an understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the body to the at a cellular level like we do, and as such, I’d hate for someone to move something that I’ve done and scratch somebody’s face in a way that I don’t approve because it could compromise the results. So, I immediately saw a red flag and I thought, OK, so what, how’s this gonna impact us in, say, 10, 15, 20 years’ time?
If this is opening up a door for general practitioners to enter in the cosmetic medical field, and they only wanted to work with nurses, then this would definitely diminish, non-medical practitioner’s role, because they would be taking over the whole regenerative spectrum of what was going on. So, at the time my husband was with me and he was an academic and we brainstormed about it and we realised we had to have a degree for our industry, and that was quite a difficult venture because, I went to my board and said, you know, we really need to pursue a degree and I wanna get your permission to look what I can come up with, and they basically said, why do we need a degree? And, and I said, well, we don’t need it right now, but we’re gonna need it further down the track.
The thing about a visionary is they see the big perspective, but, I’m also a pioneer, so that a pioneer brings into fruition something new, but there’s no history, so there’s no way of proving it.
You have to go with your intuition and your capacity to understand a concept, and then bring it into real life, so, we then, I eventually got the approval. The board said to me, Tina, we don’t fully understand, but we do trust your ability and we think we want to support you, so let you go ahead and see what you can come up with. So I went to the University of New England and we approached them. And we had a full meeting with the academic board because they were very, very reluctant. They said, oh, we don’t know that this is appropriate and beauty therapist this and beauty therapist that. So then I said, may I correct you, I’m not talking just about beauty therapy, I’m talking about aesthetics, and aesthetics has a medical component, but it also has a non-medical component, because it comes from the Greek word and, and basically the Greek word is all encompassing of the whole hygiene, well-being, health, that beauty is springs from a well of harmony with the body. The body is functioning at its peak capacity, and the Greeks were very much into athletics and also into cleanliness, so that was kind of the definition and I said to them when I went to Europe, I did see, this is back in the late 60s, I saw doctors partnering and marrying aestheticians and the two of them would work together with clients. So they had a lot more equipment than what we had in Australia, so it was quite an eye-opener, but I also gained a more global perspective of the concept, so, we then pursued and they said well how are we gonna start with this, because I had no money, I mean we didn’t have any money, nor did the association, so I said, OK, you’ve got the health package, why don’t we take wound healing, biology of ageing, health and healthcare systems, a higher level of anatomy and physiology to a cellular level and educate our practitioners and that, then we can add cosmetic chemistry and we can add equipment technology. So that’s how we started. So the work that I did was pioneering. I did it out of a strong capacity to see that if we didn’t do that, we would not be in the position that we are today. So today, Australians, in Australia, you can do laser, you can use medical technologies providing you’ve got enough education and training.
In Europe, that’s not necessarily the case, like I was talking, even in Athens, they were saying only doctors can use lasers. In America, only doctors can use lasers, so, in many ways, the fact that we got tertiary qualification as the pathway for aestheticians to become more scientific, more evidence-based to be able to deal with traumatised skin was critical. And it was a turning point that gave the opportunity for our industry to work more collaboratively with doctors and, when we look back, we see that, and also when I was working with ARPANSA, and we were looking at the potential regulations for IPL and laser for cosmetic purposes, the argument that the doctors brought is exactly that non-medical people should not be using lasers for skin rejuvenation. They don’t have enough knowledge. And then I was able to say, oh yes, they do, we have degrees now. Now we have 3 degrees, and we also have advanced diplomas or graduate certificates at a VET level that allows our industry to move into that space of medical grade technologies and be more efficient and more qualified to understand the minimising of risk.
Trish
So how much have we changed over the years, goodness me, like how far have we come?
Tina
We’ve come exactly. Well, actually it’s been very moving for me because I’ve looked back and seen all the different things, how they finally came together, and then when I measured them up against what’s happening in other countries, I realised the advantageous position that we’re in.
So really this is what they investigated and they acknowledged that this, you know, as I said, I didn’t have a job description. I didn’t even get a salary to do this. I did it out of the sheer gifting and a sense of responsibility that I could see something and I felt I owe it to my industry to serve my industry through my own capacity and gifting, and that’s what I did.
Trish
Yeah, I think it’s funny cos you, you don’t, it just becomes part of what you know you should do, even though like you said there’s no role for it, there’s no position for it, but it’s like the natural progression of what needs to happen and there’s no-one else doing it. Someone’s gotta do it and you just take that on, hey.
Tina
Well, I think a lot of practitioners because they micro-focus, they don’t even realize there was a macro dimension that if they weren’t protected, they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing today.
Trish
Yeah, yeah, no that’s true. So tell me, like your career, it, it spanned like decades of change and growth and innovation, but, how can clinic owners and practitioners use that recognition, like as an opportunity to kind of reflect on their own businesses and their role within the industry, like what like what do you believe are the most important qualities that can contribute to like a lasting and respected career in aesthetics?
Tina
OK, like, for the last 20 years, I have been bombarded by the media who want stories from me of what has gone wrong, who’s gotten burnt, what errors have happened, how the consumer is traumatised from our industry and I said this is not my role. My role is to support the industry’s credibility, identify risks and put risk management procedures in place. It’s not my role to air dirty laundry where things have gone wrong and discredit my industry. I’m sorry, I’m the wrong person. However, even in recent times, news.com.au have interviewed me about, 3 or 4 times on different issues where there have been injuries and where injuries were identified due to a lack of training or qualification, really because regulatory wise, we’re not as rigid as we should be, it allows for cowboys to enter the industry, and this is where we all have to be very, very careful, but one of the things that I had several news people that were in the media like ABC and SBS. What they said is they were quite amazed at how much we’ve come a long way and how we now have, a wonderful educational, areas where we can protect the consumer, and they said, we didn’t realise that the industry’s got all these wonderful, educational platforms and capacity to, not only elevate what your people can do, but also it makes it safer for the consumer cos we’re always hearing the other side of the story of what’s gone wrong, and this is now, and what they’ve said to me, I hope that your industry is picking this up and running with it, which is very, very true, because I have been recognised but the industry is a winner, because what the industry needs to do now is, we have to understand that I’m the first that ever was put aesthetics in the award, in the, OAM platform, they didn’t even know what it was, and it was never ever recognised before. Now, we have a strong platform, now this has gone worldwide.
I have people from America ringing, I’ve got people from South Africa, I’ve got people from Europe, that are coming and, seeing this because it is presented globally and I’m not even doing the marketing, it’s the King’s honours marketing people that are doing all the promotion, but one thing the industry can do is to tell their clients, guess what, this year, our industry was recognised through one of our pioneers, and we are very, we champion this, this recognition because indeed behind the scenes, we are working very hard for greater safety, for better education, and also formal, education. There’s a lot of unaccredited education which is useful, but the advantage of formal education is that it’s benchmarkable. So in other words, when you have a degree or when you have Government-approved qualifications, you can immediately see what that person has learnt. It’s not the, it’s not the end of everything, but it’s definitely a more credible foundation. So credible, like I couldn’t go ARPANSA and say, oh, but we’ve got these wonderful people that are teaching really good stuff, yeah, so who measures it and how do we know that the person up there, the Road that’s saying the same thing is teaching the same level. They may not necessarily be teaching the same level. So the role of credible and recognised qualifications is that it’s benchmarkable. After that, it doesn’t mean that if you get a degree or if you get a graduate certificate that you know everything. It means that you’ve got a solid foundation where line upon line, precept upon precept, you have learnt things with a solid, measurable outcome of what you have learnt that you can say, this is what I know. Now on that, you then do your ongoing professional development, you’d constantly have to do ongoing learning. Lawyers have to do it as part of the, doctors have to do it, a part, teachers have to do it. And we have to also move forward in CPD points we’ve put together, AHPRA’s put together a CPD program over 15 years ago because we want, our practitioners to be able to be measured on their knowledge and, but our baseline for entering that program is that you have to have a government-approved qualification for what you’re doing. So, so basically I feel what I’d really, really like the industry to do is use this, recognition to profile to their industry that their industry has been awarded this and, and it’s, it’s giving recognition to, we’re uncovering and telling the world, hey, we aren’t dummies, we aren’t just practitioners that just do their own thing, we do have do recognised qualifications now, and that, and, and it’s also very, very good for people that are non-medical, that they can use those qualifications to approach and collaborate with, medical clinics, aesthetic medical clinics. Now we see, you look at, NSS had just about every type of category that you could think of, where back years ago, you know when the first degree came? I was involved with the curriculum development panel of what should be in it, and we had, and I remember the one that we did for ACHW with Maureen Adamson, she said to me, can you get the plastic surgeons to come and have a meeting with us, we wanna let them know what we’re doing because we’d love to be able to, collaborate with them and our graduates, maybe get jobs with them. So, we invited them and the president and the vice president came from Melbourne to Sydney, and they were as stiff as a board, they didn’t know what they were up for, and we had the academic board, the academic board explained that they weren’t trying to become doctors, but they just wanna be more evidence-based in how they approach, the body and skin cell and therapy and they looked at us and said, you know, we live in an ivory tower, we don’t even acknowledge other doctors, in cosmetic medicine because they don’t have anywhere near, you know, we do 7 years of training and how can they come in a week and become a cosmetic surgeon? We don’t accept that, but it looks like we need to pull the walls down, and we need to start to recognise there’s a place for all of us, and if we have dialogue and we communicate that in the end I think it’ll be for the betterment of the consumer, but also there’s room for all of us to collaborate. Now, going back, at that time, I was working with Professor Mike Roberts from Queensland University, he was working on developing some postgraduate courses, for dermal clinicians and dermal therapies, and he, I worked with him for 1 year. I’d go up to Brisbane and do 3 or 4 hour meetings, and we developed a really good program. Do you know that in the end, the physicians wouldn’t allow it to go through? But he was having meetings also and inviting different medical people, and I remember he said to me, if the plastic surgeons were to come, their requirement was that if there’s going to be a cosmetic surgeon on that table of discussion, we don’t want to have any part of it. So, I think what’s happened, education has opened the way toward better collaboration and also accepting each one of us, but we have to be able to prove to the doctor that our knowledge is understood and recognised by them and the diploma isn’t gonna do it. So, I think, our industry’s moving into a very, very, very interesting direction and we do have a great future ahead of us. There’s new areas of opportunities that I can see coming that we will need to, to also capitalise on, but, overall I think what I’d like to see, is for people to realise, use this win, I don’t care if you’d only mention that it was me, what matters is tell your client, our industry now is officially recognised, even at that higher level of recognition on, the King’s Honours List.
Trish
Yeah, well, it’s funny cos, cos everyone, like people that are coming through and people that are in the industry are just so well educated these days, they’re just like the level of technical, like learnings is just like amazing, it’s actually quite mind-blowing, it’s like another language almost these days.
Tina
Well, the other thing I wanted to say is because I’m very involved with some of the universities and I go to their graduations and see them speak. I am amazed at the capacity for critical thinking that they have, which I really, really admire, and that’s often the difference between VET level training and higher education. VET is predominantly about protocol, so OK, we’re gonna do a facial, this is step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, this is the way you’ve gotta go about it. The thing with universities, you hit a problem, they say, go out and research it, here’s, here’s some credible places. Go and find an answer. And so the university teaches you to think differently.
It doesn’t necessarily matter on a practical level, someone with a diploma may be very, very skilled. What they’re not as skilled at is probing and solving a problem. So for example, let’s assume you’ve done the right thing, you’ve assessed somebody, you’re working on their skin, but you suddenly see a tendency for reaction and you think, where is that coming from? Now, if you don’t understand the mechanism that’s caused that, and you don’t know where to research it, and then, it, you come to a standstill where you think, I don’t know what to do here, whereas critical thinking will say to you, OK, go and check that aspect of what her condition was, look at her medication, OK, and maybe you need to change your settings, if the body is having an immune response, possibly you need to pull back, you need to prep the skin a bit more, you need to calm it down, and maybe proceed with less, strength of your technology until the body can adapt to it. So you make technical decisions, through the capacity to critically think.
The advantage of a university degree is that you’re also given access to research that is university, you know, there are evidence-based, research papers that have got good backing.
It’s not just somebody’s opinion on Facebook, it’s evidence-based information on which, there have been tests and proven, solutions and also identifying the limitations of something, didn’t, it didn’t work here but it worked here, so you can select what’s gonna work for your patient or your client and move in a way that is safer, but also that you’re not compromising results, because what I’m finding with people that don’t have the higher education, if they have the ability to see that someone’s gonna respond, they often pull back a little bit too much where nothing happens then and I can equally sue you if she didn’t feel you, you gave her the results she was looking for. So we are working with medical technologies. All the devices that we’re using now need to be TGA approved because they change the body and the skin at a cellular level, so we need that level of anatomy and physiology if we’re really going to master the new technologies and operate them with integrity and with sufficient qualifications and understanding, scientific understanding of how is this technology speaking to the cells and in what way, how is the dialogue going on, and I’m orchestrating the interaction between technology and the body, but I need to understand the physics of the technology, but I also need to understand the mechanism that drives that body towards healing or change or correction. So this is where knowledge has become very, very exciting.
Trish
Yeah, totally, and look, like you obviously witnessed the evolution of our industry from its early days to where it is today, like, looking ahead, where do you see the future of aesthetics, like, or like what trends or opportunities and challenges should practitioners be preparing for over the next, like, say 5 to 10, or even just 5 years?
Tina
Well, I think what I can see is, one way you measure is you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta look at the global trends and you’ve gotta look at what is happening across the world. There’s two metrics that you look at. Number one is how the consumer mindset is changing, and with all this information with people doing their own research, they now come with opinions. Some of the opinions are wrong, and the practitioner has to understand that the consultation has to become a lot more detailed and more investigative, so that you’ve gotta understand the person standing next to you, opposite you, may have an opinion about how she thinks you need to operate.
So for example, let’s assume you’re using, say, IPL and she’s read that this blah blah blah laser is phenomenal. Why aren’t you using that laser? So she will question you, so you need to tell her the evidence of why you’ve chosen that technology. You gotta have strong education in being able to explain to the consumer what, what it is that, that you’re doing and to help, undo wrong thinking because there’s the media is full of a mixed bag of, someone said it really beautifully, they said there is an epidemic of ideas and a famine of truth. So basically, what they have to understand is that the world is changing, the consumer is changing. The consumer is more, let’s read them, they’re more knowledgeable, but since COVID, they’re also very, very much aware of their own mortality, and they’re, they’re very concerned about safety. So they want to know, OK, if you do this, is this safe for me, are there any risks, so we have to understand that. The other thing that I’m seeing, I’m seeing a lot more wellness coming in the consumer mindset. The consumer wants you, OK, I want you to freshen my skin, I want you to use, maybe some fillers, I wanna look younger and, but you know what, I also wanna feel better.
I want to feel better, I wanna sleep better, I wanna have less anxiety, I wanna have less aches and pains. Come on, how can you help me, you know, in that area so we can see wellness is taking a form of more evidence-based education now, so it’s not about making someone, it’s not fluffy anymore. There is more solid science in diet, in supplements, in managing stress, in movement and exercise, in joy in your life, peace in your life, having, contributing towards your mental health. That’s very, very critical. Now all these areas can have logical, simple stuff that we can share with our clients and patients, but there will come a time when more formal education will be required. Especially when you’re entering into the supplement side of things because it’s suggesting, and so insurance companies will want to know, did you tell that person to take that tablet internally, but are you qualified to tell her to take that? So, that will impact insurance if we don’t have proper qualifications, so there’s going to be a shift where wellness will start to, units of wellness will be more incorporated in the degrees and clinics will have to decide what their lane’s going to be some maybe too busy with injectables and cosmetic medicine, and just topicals and they’re happy with that. But if you look at the statistics, AHPRA came up with the forecast for Australia, for the cosmetic medical beauty side as being per annum in the next 12 months, is 4.1 billion, and also, they said the growth is 7.5%, which has dropped a little bit. Now, let’s look at the Wellness Institute, Global Wellness Institute came up for Australia. The wellness spend of Australians within one year is 149 billion. Now what does that tell you? It tells huge and the great, the growth percentage forecast is 27%. So admittedly it’s tourist, wellness and all sorts of other things, but what we are seeing is the consumer wants to understand how to look after themselves. They want to know how, how can I live longer but live well without being sick, and that is also a driver. And if we’re going to take advantage of that and incorporate somewhere within our industry, you’ll see a huge market rising that will specialise in that area and we’ll miss out. So it’s a bastion of opportunity for sure.
Trish
And it’s starting now, like there’s no doubt about it, we’ve got longevity clinics, we all want to live longer, we’ve got like biohackers and all that, so I totally get what you’re saying. And look, just to finish up, I was just gonna say like if you could actually give one piece of advice to the next generation of aesthetic professionals that are coming through who might want to leave a meaningful legacy in this industry, like what would that be?
Tina
OK, I’m very, very clear about that, and that is, number one is integrity. Have ethics, stay humble. The thing about humility is, it’s not understood, it’s underappreciated. Humility keeps you open to new ideas. It also allows you, if you’ve done something wrong or if you’re on the wrong track, that you can be able to say, OK, yeah, I think I missed it there, yep, fair enough, let’s move on. But what I love about humility is that it’s not a weakness, it’s a protective mechanism to keep your brain open to continually learn. We have to be very careful about arrogance, and we have to be careful that we’re, we don’t move into judgment and into thinking we’re better than somebody else. I think life is beautiful, but humility, integrity, honesty are the key cornerstones of character, and character is the most important thing in longevity. You can dive into something and look at money opportunities, and then go for it, make a lot of money, and then an error that you haven’t picked up can actually dismantle you overnight, and I see, I’ve seen that happen time and time and time again. Arrogance brings you into error, it puts you into, you don’t have the ability to understand when you’re on the wrong track, or when you, you’re doing something wrong. I really guard my character more than anything, and I know I haven’t galloped as fast as other people, but let me tell you, I’ve lived and survived, and I’ve been able to be honoured for my body of work. And what matters to me is that I have been able to leave a better industry than the one I came into, and I didn’t seek for recognition. I didn’t even seek for payment, but look how wonderfully I’ve been honoured, and to me, what I would like to see is the industry to continue, but do not underestimate ethics. It’s so important because today we have the capacity to move fast, and if you don’t weigh the risks when you’re working with people and with their health, you can create burns, and I see it happening with educate, I mean even with law firms that I’m involved with, with, for court cases where there’s been injury, it’s that little bit of, slip that, happened and it’s not necessarily that they didn’t have the knowledge, they just were driven by KPIs at the expense of risk, and they didn’t stop to say, hang on a minute, I better check her today to see where she’s at. Something happened between the past, yeah, the past appointment she had and this one, that’s changed her physiology and her ability to tolerate heat with the technology I’m using, if you didn’t do the consultation, you missed that, bang, that, that’s when something’s gonna go wrong and then the court’s all over you. You did the wrong thing, you were deliberate, you’re, you’re trying to create that you were a criminal and all you did is you slipped on a small thing. So, ethics is something we have to understand, it’s a protection for the consumer, but it’s also protection for our integrity and our character, and it takes work.
You can’t just learn code of ethics and put it on the shelf, you’ve gotta review and say, OK, Every now and again I look at myself and I say, have I compromised my values here?
Is something I need to pull back on, because you know when you achieve something, you get a lot of pats on the back and people think you’re wonderful and all the rest of it, but the bottom line is you can’t afford to let it go to your head. Knowledge is constantly in front of us and we have to love knowledge and we gotta have that childlike curiosity to continue to grow and learn, but also to understand what are the foundational values that we stand for and don’t, don’t protect those because if you start to move into area of areas of quick, quick fixes, you will get burnt and it’s a shame because it can topple all your hard work.
Trish
That’s so true, and you know what, it, I mean, today’s conversation, it really kind of reminds us that true success isn’t just measured by what we achieve, but it’s actually by the impact that we have on others and, and our profession as well. So like, I mean, not only thank you for everything that you’ve helped me with since I’ve been in industry but like for everyone, thanks for everything you’ve contributed to the industry, like seriously, and congratulations on your award, seriously, that’s so good for your recognition, sorry, your recognition.
Tina
Thank you so much, I appreciate it, thanks.
Trish
Thanks, Tina, it’s been a pleasure.
