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Career Planning

Building a beautiful career

Marie McGrath laughs when she says she has a five-year plan. But the new graduate of the Medical Esthetics program at the Champlain Institute in Toronto really isn't joking about her future.

DAVID CHILTON -- Special to the Toronto Sun

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McGrath Champlain Institute graduate

Ultimately, McGrath wants to teach Medical Esthetics to those who come after her and who want a career in what is a rapidly expanding field.

But, for the next while at least, she has to build on what she learned during her eight months of full-time study at Champlain. McGrath graduated this May and now works in Toronto for Dr. Kevin Sliwowicz, a general practitioner with a cosmetic dermatology practice.

McGrath, 27, says she's always been interested in fitness and health and after graduating from high school went to work for a fitness company, ending up as a sales manager. But she knew one day she wanted to work in some part of health care that was hands-on.

McGrath, who's from Ajax, didn't chose Champlain out of the phone book but called around and hit the Internet as well. Prior to signing up at the Institute she completed a more usual esthetics course at a college she diplomatically declines to name because it was an experience she'd sooner forget. However, it did give her the background to thrive in the program at Champlain, one of only two GTA colleges that McGrath says teaches medical esthetics. The other program is offered at the Canadian Aesthetic Academy in North York.

Champlain's program is not for the frivolous. "The first three months were strictly theory, all textbooks, all exams," McGrath says. It wasn't enough to learn how a laser treats certain skin conditions, she explains, students were also taught the physics of the machine itself. And there was some chemistry and biology to study too.

Michele Presse, dean at the Champlain Institute, says her Medical Esthetics program is "very technology based. We want to be sure they (students) understand the machinery." After all, Presse continues, medical estheticians, working under the supervision of a physician, do more than offer a typical beauty treatment.

Medical esthetics covers care for such conditions as hyper pigmentation and scarring from burns or acne, as well as other skin conditions.

At Champlain, students learn how to use lasers, perform microdermabrasions, chemical peels and other non-invasive treatments.

They also have to complete -- unpaid -- 500 hours in Champlain's student-run clinic that's open to the public. And there's a 40-hour unpaid co-op too. But like so many other work placements, it works as a tryout for employment, which is how McGrath landed her job.

As well as teaching the more usual esthetics, makeup artistry and spa management, Champlain has been teaching medical esthetics since 2005. Presse says the school educates about 120 to 150 students a calendar year, either full or part time.

"Our classes in medical esthetics are smaller," Presse says. "I would say about 30% overall of our student body."

Fees run from $6,500 to $9,200 for full-time courses.