A lot has happened since the last blog entry, mostly good things. I am currently not only a Plastic and Aesthetic Surgeon, but also AMI-Faculty, head of the PAAU Academy, network administrator and do support for a software company we work with, because there you do not really care. This work consists of creating the best possible working conditions for my colleagues and me, as well as being a doctor, of course. Improving the working environment of health professionals is a big issue for me personally, because my father also put in quite a lot of overtime at the clinic. Much is and has been written about the dissatisfaction of physicians and aspiring physicians. But what has happened in practice in the last 20 years? I would like to write about what has happened to me.
PAAU
I have been working for a friend in his private practice since October 2020. We collaborate with PAAU, which is the name of an innovative company that makes minimally invasive injection treatments possible in Douglas flagship stores, performed and managed independently by renowned medical private practices. For me, not only the concept was super interesting, but also the founders, who liked my ideas regarding the collaborationconcept between the practitioners . There is a practice in Frankfurt on the Zeil and in Munich on Kaufinger Straße, so in the hearts of the big cities. In August, it should start at Jungfernstieg in Hamburg, which I am particularly looking forward to as one of the doctors practicing there. At PAAU, these practices, together in a community of practice, want to bring or maintain their treatment quality to/at the highest level. This is exactly what other well-known “injection chains” do not seem to be able to do so well. With mutual support, a power house of minimally invasive aesthetic treatments is to be created. In order to achieve and maintain this quality, it became clear to us very quickly that a structured training, which does not yet exist in Germany, is a basic requirement. “Well, then, why don’t you do some advanced training?” is what some people might say. But that can be done much better today!
Head of PAAU Academy
I always wanted to enjoy learning, wanted to learn what interested me. That’s what I did during the first and second Corona waves, but not at school. On the laptop, I trained mainly in digital health, coaching, self-organization and very much in the topics of New Work and Teal. Gradually, I became very comfortable with many digital tools, Google Calendar, Slack and ZOOM are the basics. I wanted to rekindle this intrinsic motivation for learning among my colleagues who work with PAAU, because I was supposed to take over the training of my colleagues. To my great delight, it turned out that I can now apply all that I learned in 2020, away from medicine, at PAAU, in the academy. And that’s working out very well so far. I would say the digitalization at PAAU is already lived to come together in the PAAU teams from many different cities and to communicate effectively.
TEAM PAAU
At ZOOM, I have weekly contact with my colleagues and trainees, whom I now know almost as well as friends thanks to the many check-ins to meetings. When you meet live for the first time, it’s as if you’ve known the other person for quite a long time . It gives me a good feeling to have personal contact with colleagues and to be able to make good use of digital helpers. With colleagues from all over Germany, we have managed to cultivate a real team feeling. If someone has a question about a topic, they post it and in no time at all three others have suggested solutions in the thread! That is concentrated physician power! Everyone has the same goal: to deliver quality, collegiality and safety in minimally invasive treatments with botulinum toxin and hyaluronic acid and thus have highly satisfied patients. A friend and colleague of mine said to me that the speed with which we learn at PAAU is about 5 times compared to the traditional way.
Difference PAAU – training clinics
In the training clinics, there is such a broad training program that aesthetics, especially minimally invasive treatment methods, get short shrift. In your free time, you take a few courses in injections and start very slowly with your mother or friends. It takes years until you have injected a few patients and you have forgotten a lot in the course of time.
PAAU – community of practice
At PAAU you learn online with your own content and learning content from Allergan and Galderma. After all knowledge gaps have been closed even for the most experienced injector and the trainee feels very confident through numerous 1:1 trainings and by treating his/her mother, he/she is fit to work at PAAU. This can take up to a year or a few weeks, depending on the level of knowledge. As a result, all PAAU colleagues speak the same language regarding injections with hyaluronic acid and botulinum toxin. All of them know the MD codes of Allergan and the concept of Galderma. It is not uncommon for ideas for the treatment of patients to be mentioned in joint meetings that one would never have thought of on one’s own. This professionalism is not only fun, but also gives you a feeling of trust in the team. So everyone contributes to delivering an ever better quality of treatment, and the impetus doesn’t just have to come from the experts. The trainee can also pass on the latest scientific findings from a training course to the trainers – in other words, a community of practice.