Aesthetics is an attractive alternative for many nurses looking to leave the bedside in favor of better hours and less emotional toll, the Nashville Post reported Oct. 7.
"You get to help people feel better in their skin," Danielle Maltby, BSN, RN, a former pediatric intensive care unit nurse who made the shift to aesthetics in 2019, told the news outlet. She was a NICU nurse for 12 years prior to making the switch.
In aesthetics, "Typically, you're not working holidays, you're not working weekends," Ms. Matlby said. "You have a pretty nice nine-to-five job and you can go home and eat dinner at a normal time, you can go to bed at a normal time and live like a normal human."
In July, Becker's heard from at least a dozen nurses who have taken on side hustles in hopes of reducing hours at the bedside or eventually developing a revenue stream large enough to leave hospital nursing altogether, including those who left the hospital setting to start their own aesthetics business. The Nashville Post cited research from McKinsey showing the global aesthetics injectables market is projected to grow 12 to 14 percent each year for the next five years.
Sarah Allen, MD, founder and CEO Skin Clique, a medical concierge aesthetics practice that employs about 250 nurse practitioners and physician assistants across the U.S., said it took minimal recruiting effort to hire employees. Most nurses were eager to join, she told the news outlet.
Despite growing interest in the field, there is not a universal training requirement for registered nurses interested in performing injections, and many clinics prefer to hire nurse practitioners, professionals in the aesthetics industry told the news outlet.