At the end of every foundation course we ask the room one question. Knowing what you know now, what would you tell yourself from three months ago? The answers have settled into a pattern, and it seems more useful to publish them than to keep them in a feedback folder.
Insurance first, course second
The most common answer by a distance. Several delegates booked training elsewhere before checking whether an insurer would accept the certificate for their profession. Two had to train twice. A ten-minute call to an insurer before paying any deposit would have saved them four figures.
The prescriber question is a diary question
Non-prescribers tend to arrive thinking the challenge is finding a prescriber. It isn’t, quite. It’s finding one whose diary can meet yours, because every patient needs a face-to-face consultation before toxin is prescribed. The delegates who thrive sort this before their first patient, and usually before the course.
Nobody regrets the anatomy hours
The online theory takes most people six to eight hours. A few admitted they nearly skimmed it. The same people said the clinical days only made sense because they hadn’t. If you are going to cut corners, this is the worst corner in the building to cut.
Models are people, and that changes you
One nurse put it well. On a mannequin you learn where to inject. On a person who chats to you about her daughter’s wedding while you plan her treatment, you learn why you might not. That judgement is the actual product of the course.
Your first fifty cases decide more than your certificate
The delegates who came back for advanced training a year later were almost all the ones who built slow, supervised early caseloads. The ones who sprinted into full diaries plateaued sooner. There is a lesson in that for how you plan your first six months, and it costs nothing.
If you’re weighing up a first course, our career guide covers the route in full, and the foundation course page publishes the numbers most providers won’t.