SCALE is an Aesthetic Medicine and Dermatology Convention. SCALE stands for Symposium for Cosmetic Advances and Laser Education. Over the course of several days, thousands of people in the field, both TSLMS members and non-members, gather in Nashville, TN (Music City) for some of the best presentations, talks, and workshops available in our industry. In the 14 years that SCALE has run, we have had some pretty great topics. A lot of these we have covered in our blog, and others we only publicized in our conference materials. In looking forward to 2020 (July 22-25), we decided to look back over the last decade and a half and revisit some of the best SCALE topics to date.
SCALE Music City’s Exhibit Hall
We previously highlighted this topic in one of our blog posts, ‘SCALE Vendors.’ Our sponsor and vendor list is pretty full of companies that all of us do business with – many of whom have huge R and D budgets and are changing the literal face of our industry. We not only had an incredible exhibit hall, but we also built time into the agenda specifically to meet the exhibitors and network with them. We also brought some of the products that were at the conference into focus and fully to life in our ‘Product Theater’ and our live demos. The time that practitioners spend with sponsors and exhibitors can help make the difference between being at the top of their game with access to cutting edge treatments and being a little behind the 8-ball (so to speak).
As we previously pointed out:
They have first hand industry information that may be hard to glean from other sources. They will know what their company’s research and development teams are working on and can tell you what they think the trends in 2019 and 2020 will be. They can also provide a more direct information on their products, as well as provide you with any possible discounts or other incentives that are available. All in all, these exhibitors can be your practice and your career’s best friend.
Cadaver Head Dissection With Simultaneous Live Patient Demo
This was one of SCALE Music City 2019 standouts, quite literally, with standing room only. Moderated by Tapan Patel, this particular demo, with Brian S. Biesman, MD and Molly Katz, RN, CANS providing the injection demonstration and John Moore, MD and Jason Pozner, MD conducting the dissection, was a must-see performed in a state of the art theater. We brought to our participants a unique full-face surgical anatomy and injection course designed to improve the safety of neurotoxin and dermal filler injections for clinicians at all experience levels. The workshop incorporated both meticulous cadaver dissections and patient injection demonstrations over a boxed lunch. Not only was this incredibly well attended, but our blog exploring the topic, ‘How Using Cadaver Head Dissection with Simultaneous Live Patient Injections Advances Your Medical Abilities’ has been one of our most popular ever published. There is little doubt that we will bring this type of experience back in 2020.
CoolSculpting and Other Non-Surgical Body Contouring Methods
We had several sessions on this topic, because the non-surgical trend is so popular. The sessions included:
- Maximizing NonSurgical Body Contouring: Why CoolSculpting and Why Now
- Evolving From Body Contouring to Body Sculpting
- Update on SculpSure and TempSure – The Latest in Fat Reduction and Skin Tightening
As well as a number of non-invasive skin tightening techniques and treatments.
CoolSculpting is a brand name, that describes itself as follows, “The unique CoolSculpting® fat-freezing technology is a non-surgical, scientifically proven way to reduce pockets of fat in trouble spots such as the abdomen, flanks or under the chin in as little as one session.” The treatment was certainly groundbreaking and game changing and it deserves our attention. But as we wrote about in our piece “How Body Contouring Actually Works:”
Since 2013 the technology and methods for body contouring and fat removal have greatly expanded. There are clinics that lump all of these alternatives into one broad category, to give their patients as many alternatives as possible. One clinic in Missouri even lists 5 different body contouring alternatives, defining the term as referring to “the use of various procedures to alter the shape of one or more areas of the body. Also called body shaping or body sculpting, it can involve surgical procedures or nonsurgical treatments. With surgical body contouring, the idea is to remove excess tissue, sculpt the underlying structures, and create the desired aesthetic appearance. Technologies commonly employed in nonsurgical body contouring include the following:
- Laser Therapy: A skilled practitioner can use a laser to smooth away unwanted fat deposits in the face, neck, arms, belly, back, buttocks, hips and thighs. How does it work? The laser’s energy liquefies the fat cells, destroying them. Depending on the specific treatment, the ruined fat cells might be suctioned away or left for the body to flush away on its own.
- Cryolipolysis: Sometimes dubbed fat freezing, cryolipolysis often works well for people who are close to their desired size who just want to tweak a few problem areas. Procedures that employ this technology use extreme cold to reduce localized fat deposits that reside just beneath the skin’s surface. The targeted cold triggers cell death of subcutaneous fat tissue, reshaping the body’s contours without damaging the overlying skin.
- Radiofrequency Energy: Lasers and freezing cold aren’t the only modalities available that can eliminate fat and cellulite without surgery. Some treatments utilize radiofrequency technology to zap deposits of fat cells on the abdomen, hips, thighs, and buttocks.
- Ultrasound Waves: Ultrasonic body contouring procedures target subcutaneous fat cells with sound waves at frequencies too high for the human ear to detect. These waves cause the cells to vibrate, shattering them into materials that can be disposed of naturally by the body.
Other major trends in 2019 were highlighted in some of our sessions and our blog. Stay tuned to see what 2020 brings and we look forward to seeing you next July.