Journal · Topic · 16 articles
Dr Ong's notes
Essays from Dr Ong on the practice, the industry and the questions that do not fit a treatment page.
The Consulting Room
The part patients do not see
Whenever we think of a patient's outcome, it can be a sleepless night. What patients do not see, what the research says about doctors who lose sleep over an outcome, and how I cope.
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The Consulting Room
Why we forget what was agreed
Two recall studies, what they found about how much people remember after a consultation, and three things you can ask for at your next visit.
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The Consulting Room
When more treatment is not the answer
How common body dysmorphic disorder is among people at cosmetic skin clinics, what the figures cannot tell you, and who to talk to.
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Foundations
No downtime is not the same as fast results
XERF, Ultherapy and OndaPro all carry little to no downtime. None of them are fast. What each treatment's own published timeline says about when a result actually shows, and why a week before an event is too late to start any of them.
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Insider Lens
Why we usually cannot see you the same day
A patient asks whether they can come in today. Usually, the honest answer is no. Here is what that protects, and what to do if the concern will not wait.
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Insider Lens
Aesthetic medicine is sick. Here is my diagnosis.
A doctor in Setia Alam sorts the signals patients use to choose a clinic, starting with the ones on his own shelf.
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The Consulting Room
The needle is the easy part
What you touch without realising tells a doctor more than the mirror does.
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Sunday Notes
The watch you wear most is rarely the most expensive one
Repeatability is the underrated metric. In watches, and in everything else you live with daily.
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Insider Lens
Partial to your diagnosis. Not to a brand.
Every doctor has preferred tools. The question is whether those preferences serve you.
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Insider Lens
The quiet we kept: the incentives that decide what your doctor recommends
A practitioner's account of the supply chain that quietly shapes aesthetic recommendations, and the silence most doctors keep about it.
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Foundations
A booming market, and the face that cannot read it
Regenerative aesthetics is one of the fastest-growing categories in the industry. Your skin has not seen the forecast.
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Sunday Notes
Two hours nobody sees, and the rule that protects them
The most important professional decision I make in a day happens before any work begins. A morning rule, and why judgement depends on it.
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Insider Lens
The trips that capture good doctors, and how I know
I have been on the trips device companies run for doctors. How sponsored education captures good clinicians, and four signals that tell training from incentive.
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The Consulting Room
The face you can change in one visit
A mentor's line about restraint that took years, and one over-treated patient, to understand. Why the easiest changes are the ones to be most careful with.
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Insider Lens
Why I post
A senior colleague said posting is beneath the profession. He may be right. The argument for why a qualified doctor should be in the feed anyway.
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Insider Lens
Some patients do not need a treatment
The hardest part of a good consultation: telling a patient she does not need what she came in for. Why a clinic that can afford to say no is the one to trust.
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