Esthetician & LPN

aleighc1 · Dec 30, 2008

You might have better luck asking on your state board, under the regional section here. Pay differes greatly between cities (as do job opportunities), so it's hard to say without more knowledge of the area you live in.

OC85 · Dec 30, 2008

Sher1981 said:
Hello. I am a licensed esthetician (skin care therapist) & will be starting school in 1 week to become an LPN. From what I understand it's hard to get a job in a doctors office. My goal is to work for a dermatologist or plastic surgeon so that I can use my esthetics license as well. What do you think the odds are & how much do you think my pay will be?

A lot of it depends on what state you want to work in. I, too, am licensed as an esthetician [my cosmetology license includes skincare], but in California, you won't really make any more in a dermatologists office than you would in a higher end day spa. Really, the big money for nurses in dermatologists offices comes from cosmetic lasers. I believe that California is the only state that requires you to at least be an RN to operate most cosmetic lasers [I'm pretty sure other states let you do it with an esthetician's license and little extra training], but the trade off is that you make a lot more. Because California has this law, and because cosmetic laser is a big money maker for a lot of dermatologists/plastic surgeons, your esthetician's license and LPN license are pretty useless in this kind of setting compared to RNs. Again, I have to stress that things may be completely different from one state to the next. As for pay, you have to do a little research for that, but you can usually find general ballpark figures for most professions from Department of Labor surveys. Check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics [ https://www.bls.gov/ ], they usually have quite a bit of info regarding pay and benefits.

plaza · Jun 18, 2009

OC85 - do you have the specific code section where it states that "...at least be an RN to operate most cosmetic lasers" in CA?