How to Choose the Right Aesthetic Practitioner

In Dubai, healthcare professionals and facilities are licensed by the Dubai Health Authority. The DHA operates a public portal, Sheryan, where you can look up a practitioner and confirm their licence is current and what they are licensed to do.

Take note of the licensed title as well. Titles such as General Practitioner, Specialist and Consultant are distinct licence categories with different requirements, and a practitioner may only advertise under the title they actually hold. If a clinic's marketing uses a grander title than the licence supports, that tells you something about how carefully they treat claims generally.

Aesthetic qualifications are genuinely confusing, partly because the terminology is used loosely in advertising. A rough hierarchy of what different things mean:

• Primary medical qualification — the degree that makes someone a doctor. Necessary, but says nothing about aesthetic training.
• Regulator licence — the DHA licence permitting practice in Dubai, in a defined scope. This is the one that is legally meaningful and publicly checkable.
• Postgraduate degree — an MSc or similar in a relevant field such as clinical dermatology. Substantial, structured, assessed study over one to three years.
• Diploma or certificate courses — structured training in aesthetic medicine, typically days to weeks, often with practical cases and CME credits. Genuinely useful, but not equivalent to a degree or a specialty qualification.
• Product or brand training — a day with a manufacturer's trainer. Common, and often presented in marketing as though it were a qualification.
• Board certification — a formal specialty credential awarded by a recognised certifying board, verifiable in a registry. Frequently claimed loosely; worth asking which board, and whether it can be verified.

This is the single most useful question in the whole process, and it is asked far too rarely.

In a number of clinics, the person who consults you is not the person who treats you. You meet a doctor, you are reassured, and on the day the injection is performed by someone else — sometimes a nurse or therapist, sometimes someone whose licence and scope you never verified.

Ask directly: who will perform my treatment, what is their name, and what is their licence number? Then check it. If the answer is evasive, or the name changes on the day, that is your answer.

A good consultation is a two-way assessment. You are deciding about them as much as they are assessing you.

• What exactly are you recommending, and why that rather than the alternatives?
• Which product will you use? May I see the packaging before it is opened?
• What is a realistic result, and what will it not fix?
• What are the risks and side effects, and how likely are they?
• What is your protocol if there is a complication? For filler: is hyaluronidase available on site?
• How many of these have you performed, and can I see unretouched before-and-after photographs of your own patients?
• What is the follow-up arrangement, and is a review appointment included?
• What is the total cost, including any review or correction?

Some of these are judgement calls. Several together should end the conversation.

• Pressure to treat on the same day as your first consultation, before you have had time to consider it
• Discounts that expire today, or package deals requiring payment upfront for treatments you have not yet responded to
• No discussion of risks, or visible irritation when you raise them
• Guaranteed results — no honest practitioner guarantees a biological outcome
• Refusal to name the product, or product drawn up out of sight
• No written consent, or consent presented after payment as a formality
• Treatment offered outside a licensed facility — at home, in a hotel, or at a private event
• Before-and-after photographs with inconsistent lighting, angle or make-up, or obviously retouched
• Recommending treatment for everything you mention, rather than prioritising
• Being unable to explain what they would do if a complication occurred

It starts with your medical history — medications, allergies, previous treatments, relevant conditions, and whether you are pregnant or breastfeeding. A practitioner who begins by asking what you want without establishing whether it is safe has skipped the medical part.

It includes an actual assessment of your face, not just the area you mentioned, and an explanation of what is causing the concern. It sets out options, including doing nothing, and gives realistic expectations for each.

It covers risks specifically enough to be useful, and it leaves you time to decide. It should also, when appropriate, include being told that a treatment is not right for you. That is the clearest indicator you are dealing with someone whose judgement you can trust — it is a lost sale, offered honestly.