Client Consultation, Communication, and Professional Ethics
This domain tests intake, consent, confidentiality, and scope of practice. Expect questions on medical history, allergy screening, referrals, and handling requests outside your license.
Core rules
- Use an intake form and update it: medications, allergies (especially acrylates and nickel), skin conditions, pregnancy, diabetes, and prior reactions. Ask open-ended questions and listen for risk factors.
- Obtain informed consent for enhancements and for any service with foreseeable risk. Explain aftercare, maintenance, and when to return.
- Stay in scope: do not diagnose, prescribe, or treat disease. Refer suspicious lesions, new discoloration, pain, and infection.
- Protect confidentiality. Do not discuss clients outside the service relationship or post images without permission.
- Be honest about pricing, product limits, and what the service can achieve. Document refusals and referrals.
Worked example
A client asks you to cut out an ingrown toenail. Reasoning: removing tissue is outside nail technician scope and creates infection risk. Decline, explain why, and refer to a podiatrist. Document the request and referral in the client record.
Traps
Giving medical advice, promising a cure, sharing client information, and failing to document a referral are common errors. Also do not let a client pressure you past your scope.