AestETHICS: IBSA's global commitment to ethical aesthetic medicine continues

Created to promote shared reflection on ethics in aesthetic medicine, AestETHICS is now a constantly growing project involving  healthcare professionals, scientific societies and educational schools at international level.

In just a few years, the initiative has become a structured forum for dialogue, with the aim of promoting aesthetic medicine as a practice based on listening to and respecting the uniqueness of each person, for authentic and sustainable beauty over time. Let's rewind the tape and retrace the genesis of the project.

FROM SCIENTIFIC REFLECTION TO THE BUILDING OF AN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

AestETHICS took shape in 2023 with the publication of the Consensus Paper Aesthetic Medicine: International Dialogue on the Relationship Between Medicine, Beauty and Ethics, presented at the IMCAS World Congress in Paris. The document paved the way for a broader phase of dissemination and discussion, with the issues being shared with the scientific community and brought to the forefront of the debate on clinical practice.

Towards the end of the same year, the AestETHICS campaign was launched, developed in collaboration with the leading Italian scientific societies of aesthetic medicine – SIME and Agorà – and supported by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS). This initiative was created for and with specialists, acknowledging them as the only professionals qualified to establish a relationship of trust with patients and to guarantee a rigorous and responsible approach.

This work led to an international debate and the project was enriched with new scientific initiatives, including a survey conducted among 90 professionals in the field. The responses collected paint a clear picture: for most healthcare professionals, ethics is closely linked to patient safety, while a quarter of the sample highlights the absence of a single, shared ethical model.

In 2024, the project was strengthened thanks to the collaboration with SIME and Agorà, leading to the organisation of two lectures on ethics for 300 students of aesthetic medicine in Rome and Milan (Italy). In the same year, a survey was conducted among 450 future aesthetic professionals, aimed at understanding how ethics is perceived in their training and in view of their future clinical practice. In 2025, the results were published in the journal Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine in an article entitled Ethics in aesthetic practice: results from a survey of medical doctors attending aesthetic medicine programmes in Italy.

At the same time, a network of testimonials was developed, the AestETHICS Ambassadors: over 150 professionals active in promoting and enhancing an approach based on these principles.

A NETWORK THAT GROWS IN ETHICS: NEW COUNTRIES, NEW VOICES, A SINGLE VISION FOR AUTHENTIC BEAUTY

2025 marked the international expansion of AestETHICS. The project opened up to new countries, starting with Poland, where collaboration with local scientific societies – including the Stowarzyszenie Lekarzy Dermatologów Estetycznych (SLDE) – has been strengthened. AestETHICS also reached Argentina, thanks to the involvement of a selection of doctors participating in the social media campaign, helping to spread the importance of a responsible approach to aesthetic medicine.

The project's philosophy is also gaining ground in France, where a session has been organised as part of Aesthetic Days in March. The journey continued with a webinar in collaboration with ISAPS – involving over 30,000 plastic surgeons worldwide – with the participation of Dr. Kai-Uwe Schlaudraff and Dr. Andrea Margara.

Overall, today AestETHICS represents an increasingly broad movement. Strengthened by this consensus, IBSA will continue to promote dialogue between experts and scientific societies, with the aim of contributing to the definition of a model capable of capturing both the possibilities and limitations of the discipline, pursuing the idea of authentic and conscious beauty.