Medical spas are forerunner of a revolution. From Galen until now, primary method of care has been through hands and individual knowledge of a physician. But that’s changing. The default method of care is becoming technology based. In every market and time, technologies are developed that replace an individuals knowledge and skill.

Lasers, IPLs, radio frequency, infrared, personal DNA testing, Pointe Lift™, Liposolve™, Clear², PDT, telomere clipping, anti-aging drugs and a smorgasbord of other technologies in development promise to change medicine in same way that computers, jet engines, and GPS have changed aviation. Technology now enables a technician (under medical supervision) to perform effective medical treatments and places physician in an oversight roll instead of being primary practitioner. In near future, physicians will have more in common with an astronauts than Wright Brothers.

But changing technology poses very deep problems for physicians. Technology allows easy replication and scalability, forces an unimaginably steep new learning curve on overworked doctors, and eliminates many of barriers and protections that physicians have relied on in past. And it’s only going to get worse.

Consider this. The combination of markets that Surface competes in is huge (40-50 billion per year and growing), highly fragmented (individual practitioner model), completely new (technology based), and free of any meaningful national players (yet). Already there are very deep pockets investigating ways to exploit this emerging marketplace. The Wal-Marts and Home Depots of this new medical marketplace are being built.

But there’s opportunity as well. Technology opens new doors for physicians who can manage this new paradigm. That’s why a ready supply of smart and motivated physicians tired of daily grind of insurance patients are moving into marketplace and successfully competing. For first time, physicians outside current specialties of plastic surgery (cutting and stitching) and dermatology (diseases of skin) have potential to earn income of these “big money” specialties. This new market will inevitably give rise to a new specialty whose focus will be “non-surgical cosmetic medical technologies”. You can see fragmentation today. Many dermatologists now label themselves as “cosmetic” to market themselves as a subspecialty.

Hurry up and wait. You can’t get enough good information fast enough. But this is a new business and demands a huge investment of time to make right decisions. Sales reps will stream into your clinic armed with charts and graphs that go up and to right, advertisers will drop phrases like “top of mind awareness”, and you'll have a creeping suspicion that market is getting away from you. Go slow. There are a host of land mines in area and there are some that will be advising you to jump directly on them.

So, how do you build a medical spa inside your existing practice? Surface has three locations, four physicians, master aestheticians, technicians, patient coordinators, managers and office staff. Every treatment at Surface is governed by a set of proprietary protocols. As a business, we have advised dozens of individual physicians, managers, and investors about opening and operating medical spas. Be advised this is not easy, but here are a few suggestions.

In Britain, around 41,200 people are thought to be infected with HIV, and a third of them do not know. The highest rate of new cases ever was recorded as recently as 2001. The number of people infected in UK is expected to rise by 50% over next five years. Fifteen thousand people have died of HIV-related diseases so far.

HIV HIV stands for "Human Immunodeficiency Virus". This virus gets inside our body and then stops our immune system from working properly. This happens over a period of time and length of time taken is different for each person. When immune system is disrupted, we are more prone to infections.

Normally when infections get inside us, our own immune system knows about it. There are a lot of different "cells" spread around inside us that have different roles to play in fighting infection. They move around body where ever they are needed. The two main types are red blood cells and white blood cells. The white blood cells are split into two main camps