Lessons LEARNT

Amy Bird reflects on her professional and personal lessons from 2025

Every year in aesthetic medicine teaches us something, but 2025 felt very different. It was a year where innovation outpaced bandwidth, regulation sharpened and practitioners across the sector navigated both opportunity and scrutiny. For many of us, the lessons of 2025 were not only professional but deeply personal. As I move into 2026, the insights I’m carrying forward are shaped by growth, boundaries, vulnerability and a renewed sense of self.

SLOWING DOWN HAS BECOME A PROFESSIONAL SUPERPOWER

Our sector rewards speed, faster treatments, quicker consultations, more efficient systems. But somewhere in the rush, it became clear that going faster doesn’t always mean doing better. Slowing down is not a step backwards; it’s a mark of maturity. Taking an extra moment to truly listen. Leaving space in the diary. Pausing before adopting a trend simply because everyone else is doing so. I would argue once upon a time I saw this as a downfall to my sector visibility.

Stillness creates clarity, and clarity creates safer practice. In 2026, those who pace themselves will ultimately outlast those who don’t.

BOUNDARIES ARE BECOMING A FORM OF CLINICAL PROTECTION

Aesthetic medicine carries emotional weight. Patients bring us their confidence, their insecurities, their fears, trials and tribulations often all in one appointment. Holding that requires energy, yet we seldom acknowledge it. In 2025, many of us rediscovered the importance of boundaries. Boundaries aren’t about distancing. They’re about sustaining. And in doing so, they safeguard both practitioner wellbeing and patient outcomes.

LEADERSHIP IS IN THE BEHAVIOUR, NOT THE TITLES

Personally, I felt leadership shifted in 2025. It became less about positions and more about conduct. Every practitioner influences the culture of this sector.

Leadership now looks like: – Correcting misinformation thoughtfully – Supporting a colleague through a complication – Modelling safe practice when no one is watching, consistently.

These small, consistent behaviours shape public trust far more than job titles ever could.

EDUCATION IS CHANGING

The appetite for learning is stronger than ever, but the bar is rising. Clinicians want depth over volume, evidence over aesthetics, mentorship over marketing.

The key skillset for 2026 will be a stack of clinical competence and human-centred capabilities: risk communication, conflict resolution, reflective practice, emotional resilience and systems thinking.

These aren’t “soft skills.” They are safety skills.

THE NEED FOR RESEARCH AND HONESTY

2025 highlighted a growing expectation for evidence: outcomes, complications, safeguarding, data transparency. We cannot strengthen a landscape we are not actively measuring.

The next decade in aesthetics will be defined by collaborative research, shared insights and collective accountability not isolated pockets of information and trends driven by commercial wins.

THE PERSONAL LESSON

If I’m honest, 2025 became my slightly unexpected year of “the yes game’’ for nurse Amy not chair Amy.

On the surface, these were long-awaited milestones, years in the making. But beneath them was a lingering narrative: prove you deserve this.

People have commented on my role as Chair at BAMAN, assuming

it has been the catalyst for my professional progression. While the role has brought visibility, the truth is that the foundations were laid long before that title existed. I have been grafting for more than a decade building credibility, relationships and trust.

Yet as Chair Amy, after a year of the role becoming a full-time job and educating myself in a position very few have held before me, I still found myself in meetings where no one knew my background, having to continually validate myself. The imposter in my head grew louder, at a time when it should have been long gone.

TRUSTING MY INTUITION

2025 also reminded me of a truth I had forgotten: intuition is one of my greatest superpowers. On the rare occasions I swerved it or was convinced it will be fine, I learned exactly why I shouldn’t. Asking my intuition to step aside has never served me well and is something I will not be repeating in 2026.

I’ve had this sixth sense since childhood, since my mum passed suddenly at nine years old. It’s a heightened sensitivity to behaviour and truth. Perhaps it’s a neurodiverse streak or simply how I’m wired, but I rarely see the grey in people’s actions. I see patterns, intention, clarity.

This year reminded me not to dismiss that. To honour it, my war wounds on show as they have manipulated my adult personality.

LETTING MYSELF BE VULNERABLE

I also did something new this year: I showed my vulnerability, and to my surprise, the world didn’t fall apart. Yes, I was embarrassed but I can count on my hand the times of ‘breaking point’ I have experienced before 2025 and that figure increased at a rate of knots in 2025. My traumas hardened me, not froze me, and gave me a kind of resilience that is rarely occluded.

For years I have operated like a wind-up puppy endlessly productive, squeezing 26 hours of output into an eight-hour day. But that pace isn’t sustainable, and it certainly isn’t healthy.

When I realised, I wasn’t just tired but genuinely running on empty, something had to change because I have mentally and physically made myself ill.

Another painful insight: my strong sense of right and wrong something I’ve always worn like armour can also be a burden. Especially in my new roles. Sometimes you must play the long game, even when every instinct wants to fix things immediately.

EMBRACING THE UNCOMFORTABLE

A brand development manager, now a good friend once said to me: “Amy, shy kids don’t get sweets.”

I laughed at the time. Years later, with scrutiny heavier than ever, I finally understand how true that was. The conflict? This behaviour isn’t in my nature. For 13 years, I built everything by being myself no shortcuts, no self-promotion, no smoke and mirrors and £0 spent on PR. Just graft and integrity.

2025 showed me that visibility is sometimes necessary not for ego, but to ensure the right work, values and standards are represented and that is totally ok.

But here is what I hope 2026 proves: credibility should exist regardless of personality type. Whether you’re quiet, loud, entitled, oblivious or somewhere in between credibility is earned. Not performed. If you are without credibility or competence to the expected standard, trust me, it will come out in the wash.

THE SKILLS WE NEED THE MOST IN 2026

2026, for me, is about refinement. A more intentional version of myself. One who pauses and asks: “Is this really worth it?”

I no longer have the capacity or desire to pour energy into everything and everyone. This year will require me to evaluate where I invest my time and, crucially, who I invest it with. Not from defensiveness, but from self-respect.

A FINAL THOUGHT

2025 gave me challenge, clarity and the opportunity to recalibrate.

If we carry these lessons into 2026 with more courage, more boundaries and more self-awareness this won’t just be another year of change.

It will be a year of meaningful evolution, both individually and collectively.

Bird’s THE WORD

Every issue, Amy Bird, our aesthetic nurse on the inside, reflects on life within the sector.

AMY BIRD

Amy Bird RGN NMP is an award winning nurse prescriber, speaker, trainer and KOLwith more than a decade of full time experience in medical aesthetics. She is lead nurse at her practice, KAST Medical Aesthetics in Cheshire and recently became chair at BAMAN. She is a passionate advocate for best practice, standards and patient safety.