Incidence and need of advanced aesthetic somatology in South Africa

Published ThesisRapid advancements in technology have resulted in a growing trend of aesthetic beauty treatments. Internationally, the beauty profession has adapted to include aesthetic treatments through the offering of non-surgical aesthetic qualifications as an additional career choice for qualified beauty therapists. The merging of beauty and aesthetics treatments has created a skills gap and an opportunity for career development in the beauty industry. Although somatologists in South Africa are currently practicing aesthetic treatments, there is no qualification which focuses solely on this skill. This has created the need for somatology in South Africa to move towards a more medical approach within the skin care sector and align itself with international benchmarks being set by other countries in the industry. The aim of this study was to assess the requirements and needs for the development of advanced aesthetic somatology as an education programme in the South African context. A quantitative research design was implemented with qualitative elements. The mixed method approach gathered qualitative and quantitative data which provided a broader context to respondents’ perceptions on the use of advanced aesthetics within the somatology industry. Three questionnaires were developed, targeting each respondent group: somatology students, qualified somatologists and medical professionals. A non-probability purposive sampling technique was applied for the purpose of the study. Results indicated the need for the development and standardisation of aesthetics education in the field of somatology. Somatology respondents recognised the consumer need for aesthetic treatments and agreed there is a need to keep abreast of new technologies and aesthetic treatments being offered in the industry. A skills gap was further highlighted when somatology respondents confirmed they were currently incorporating advanced skin care treatments into their scope of practice, but required further training and education in aesthetic somatology. A common sentiment among the three respondent groups was the need to revisit the current somatology curricula to include advanced aesthetic modalities. Similarly, somatology students recognised the need to expand somatology education to include aesthetics in order to prepare them for current industry trends. Students displayed great interest in obtaining future employment in medical settings and in performing aesthetical treatments. Similar responses from the three stakeholder groups found dermal science, permanent hair removal techniques, wound care, resurfacing science and pre/post-operative techniques to be important subjects included in the advanced aesthetic somatology curriculum. A generally positive outlook was displayed by all stakeholders with regards to interdisciplinary practices. Both students and somatologists indicated it would be beneficial for the profession and clients to work under the supervision of medical professionals. Likewise, medical professionals agreed they would feel comfortable hiring an advanced aesthetic somatologist to assist in medical practices provided the correct education and training was in place. The South African beauty profession has recognised the benefits of diversifying services in order to meet industry needs. Due to a rapidly evolving beauty industry, the need to develop and standardise aesthetics education in somatology was highlighted. Finally, this study identified the importance for the somatology industry to bridge an imperative training and education deficit

Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences

The idea of discipline opens up a nexus of meaning. Disciplines discipline disciples.1 A commitment to a discipline is a way of ensuring that certain disciplinary methods and concepts are used rigorously and that undisciplined and undisciplinary objects, methods and concepts are ruled out. By contrast, ideas of interdisciplinarity imply a variety of boundary transgressions, in which the disciplinary and disciplining rules, trainings and subjectivities given by existing knowledge corpuses are put aside. In this introduction we interrogate the current preoccupation with interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, in particular the ascendance in recent years of a particular discourse on interdisciplinarity where it is associated with a more generalised transformation in the relations between science, technology and society. We are therefore less concerned with interdisciplinarity in general than with the contemporary formation of interdisciplinarity: how it has come to be seen as a solution to a series of current problems, in particular the relations between science and society, the development of accountability, and the need to foster innovation in the knowledge economy. The present situation, we will suggest, can be understood as a problematisation: 2 the question of whether a given knowledge practice is too disciplinary, or interdisciplinary, or not disciplinary enough has become an issue and an object of enquiry for governments, funding agencies and researchers