Name: Dr. Alicia Teska                  
Clinic: Skin Temple Medi Clinic & Spa
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Website: skintemple.com.au
That's interesting: Dr. Alicia Teska is a founding fellow of the Australasian College of Aesthetic Medicine.

What is it like practicing cosmetic medicine in Australia?

Cosmetic medicine is much regulated for doctors in Australia, but completely unregulated for any other health provider. It can be very frustrating to find that your previously loyal client is now going to the home of a local plastic surgeon’s nurse to have their Botox injections.

Unsupervised (and uninsured) nurse injecting (of just about any substance at all) is quite rampant in Australia. I get a number of new clients coming in each week who have had treatments in salons or at the nurse’s home, with complaints about the outcome.

Australia regulates its own medical technologies independently of other countries. If the technology has been approved for a use in the USA, it definitely assists to get it through the Therapeutic Goods Administration in Australia a lot faster.

I have been reported for calling myself a "Cosmetic Physician". In Australia, there is a frightening holier-than-thou attitude towards medical practitioners who work outside of a “Royal College” setting. It is disturbing to see how ignorant many medical practitioners are of the work being done by Cosmetic Physicians. The regulatory body in Australia (AHPRA) would like to see the Cosmetic Physicians who are vocationally registered (Fellows of the RACGP, such as myself) call themselves Specialist GPs. This would be quite misleading to my patients, as I no longer practice the full spectrum of normal General Practice.

There is an opportunity to establish a subspecialty/special interest group of General Practice in Cosmetic Medicine/Dermatology. I think it’s likely that a group of us who work exclusively in that area will get together and put Cosmetic Medicine on the map in this country.. if the politics allow!