What a good aesthetic consultation
should include, and refuse

What should a good aesthetic consultation include?

A good aesthetic consultation includes seven things: a history, an examination, photographs, a named diagnosis, a discussion of options with their risks, a written plan with the fee, and time to decide. Each one can be checked, and a clinic that skips several is selling a treatment rather than assessing a person.

The order matters. Assessment comes before any recommendation, so you should know what is driving your concern before you are told what to do about it. The doctor who examines you should be the doctor who treats you, and you should be told so. Aesthetic treatment is elective, which means that nothing about it is urgent and everything about it can wait until you are sure.

The checklist applies to any treatment, not only injectables: a laser, an energy device, a skin booster, a hair programme or a peel. What changes is the examination and the risks discussed, not the structure.

Ask who will perform each step. Injectables and medical lasers belong in a licensed medical clinic and are performed by registered practitioners, which in a medical clinic means doctors registered with the Singapore Medical Council. The answer should be unequivocal, and a doctor's registration can be checked on the Ministry of Health's healthcare professionals search.

What history should the doctor take?

The history should cover what concerns you and how it has changed, your general health and medicines, allergies, and any treatment you have already had. It is a medical history, not a sales questionnaire, and it is where many contraindications are found: pregnancy or plans for pregnancy, a tendency to scar or form keloids, cold sores, a bleeding tendency or blood-thinning medicine, and a past reaction to filler or anaesthetic.

Earlier treatment deserves particular attention. Bring product names, areas and dates if you have them, because knowing what is already there changes what can safely be added. If you do not have records, or the treatment was done elsewhere or overseas, the assessment still proceeds, and ultrasound can show where earlier filler sits. Recent isotretinoin, photosensitising medicines and a recent tan are the sort of details that change the timing of laser treatment, which is why they are asked about.

“Every plan begins with an assessment — you will always know what is proposed, and why, before anything is done.”

Dr Sin YongOn how a consultation is structured

What should the examination and photographs cover?

The examination should look at the area itself, at rest and in movement where that matters, and in light and at angles that show what is happening in the skin or the tissue beneath it. A concern about the lower face may start in the mid-face; a concern about under-eye darkness may be pigment, a hollow, a bag or all three. A consultation that looks only at the spot you point to has not examined you.

Photographs are normal and useful. They should be taken for your medical record and treatment planning, with your consent, and used to compare like with like at review. You can ask to see them. They are not a licence to use your face for advertising, and in Singapore advertising of this kind is restricted in any case. The examination should end with the doctor telling you what they see and why, in plain words.

What should the plan, consent and fee look like?

The plan should be written, specific and itemised. It names the treatment and the area in plain language, the product or device and the consumables, why a combination is proposed if one is, the review visit that follows, and what is not included. Products and devices should be registered with the Health Sciences Authority, and you are entitled to ask. The devices page on this site shows how devices are described.

Consent is more than a signature. Singapore Medical Council guidance expects doctors to disclose a wider range of side effects in aesthetic practice than in conventional medicine, including risks that are less common, to take consent in a way that leaves time to think and to clarify doubts, and, for the more invasive procedures, to allow a reasonable cooling-off period between consent and treatment. The same guidance expects fees to be transparent and made known in advance.

Expect a consultation fee, stated when you book, and expect the treatment fee only after examination. What determines a treatment fee is the area and how many zones, the product or device and the amount it needs, the number of passes or vials the assessment calls for, and whether treatments are combined. Singapore's rules for medical advertising prevent prices from being published, so a quote is a written document given after assessment; how fees are quoted explains it.

What should a good consultation refuse to do?

A good consultation refuses to quote before it has examined you. A number given over messaging, without an assessment, is not a quote for your plan, and a lower number elsewhere may describe a different device, fewer passes or a treatment performed by someone else. Compare what is included, who performs it and what the review covers. Ask for the quote in writing; it should stand, and you should be able to take it home to think over.

It also refuses to press for a decision on the day, to bundle treatments into a package you must buy now, or to minimise risk. It refuses to treat something the assessment does not support, including when the honest answer is to wait, to treat a different problem from the one you came with, or to refer you. Dr Sin Yong refers concerns that need a dermatologist, or surgery by a plastic surgery specialist, rather than offering a treatment that cannot reach them.

Finally, it refuses to promise an outcome. Response varies between people, and a consultation that tells you exactly how you will look has told you something it cannot know.

What should happen after treatment?

After treatment you should leave with written aftercare that sets out what to expect, what to avoid and which signs to report, and with a clear route to reach the doctor who treated you. Injectables should be reviewed once the product has settled, and the interval for longer programmes should be set at review rather than on a calendar.

Ask in advance what happens if something goes wrong, and who answers. After filler, white or dusky skin, worsening pain or any change in vision is urgent, and the complication care page sets out what to do whether you were treated here or elsewhere. Ask also what happens if you are not happy with the result. A clinic that has thought about these questions will answer them without discomfort.

What happens at a consultation with Dr Sin Yong, step by step?

A consultation with Dr Sin Yong follows six steps: an enquiry by WhatsApp, email or call-back; an assessment of your history and the area, with photographs for your record only; a discussion of options, which can include waiting or no treatment; consent, with time to decide; treatment, performed personally by him; and follow-up. Fees are set out before anything is agreed, and you are not expected to be treated on the day. The consultation process page has the detail.

If you are unsure where to start, the treatment finder points to the pages that explain what is usually discussed for a concern, and the guide on how to choose an aesthetic clinic sets out what to check before booking anywhere. You can read about Dr Sin Yong's background on the about page. Every plan begins with an assessment, and the aim is that you always know what is proposed, and why, before anything is done.