A Core Curriculum for Postgraduate Program in Nonsurgical Aesthetics: A Cross-sectional Delphi Study

Background The desire for portraying a young and beautiful face and body is driving people to seek aesthetic treatment and accelerating the exponential growth of non-surgical aesthetic procedures. Unfortunately, despite impressive advances, non-surgical aesthetics is yet to have a formal clinical education program. Objectives This study aimed to identify the content and structure of an evidence-based postgraduate curriculum in non-surgical aesthetics. Methods The Delphi questionnaire was developed after a comprehensive literature review and a focus group discussion. The questionnaire was emailed to 40 experts and 20 trainee physicians worldwide via the online survey platform and was asked to assign a rating on a four-point Likert scale. A “1” represents a strong disagreement about integrating a topic in the non-surgical aesthetic curriculum, and a “4” indicates a firm agreement. A pre-fixed percentage agreement of 80% and Cronbach’s alpha = 0.90 was established to represent a consensus for the current study. Results The response rate for the Delphi study was 90.0%, 88.8% and 90% in the first, second and third rounds, respectively. The experts and trainee physicians agreed with all the proposed topics (≥ 80%) and considered them critical for the proposed non-surgical aesthetic curriculum. The mean score for each subject was ≥3, Cronbach’s alpha value for the Delphi was 0.94, confirming internal consistency and reliability. Conclusions The consensus demonstrates significant advances towards developing an evidence-based curriculum for a postgraduate program in non-surgical aesthetics, which is essential to support the growing demand for trained aesthetic physicians.