Plastic surgery is sometimes confused with reconstructive surgery, but they are two different things. A simplistic definition is that plastic surgery is for aesthetic purposes and reconstructive surgery is to correct some type of deformity. For example, people who are unhappy with the appearance of facial sagging may do a face-lift to tighten their skin. A person whose face was disfigured due to skin cancer would be a good candidate for reconstructive surgery.
It was then linked to the philosophical study of beauty and taste, and plastic surgeons later appropriated it to describe their work to “remodel the normal structures of the body in order to improve the patient's appearance and self-esteem”. Unfortunately, this has generated a lot of frustration in the plastic surgery community, as his specialty was increasingly viewed negatively and misunderstood, both by the public and by his medical colleagues. For example, some may plausibly argue that adding the term “reconstructive” has helped to clarify to the public what plastic surgeons actually do, since the term “plastic” has become part of the designations of other subspecialties (for example, facial plastic surgery, oculoplastic surgery, etc.). Often, ASPS plastic surgeons delve into one of the many other specific fields of plastic surgery, such as manual surgery, craniofacial surgery, microsurgery, cosmetic surgery, etc. Around the same time that the term “reconstructive” was gaining acceptance in the plastic surgery community, cosmetic surgery began to experience rapid and widespread expansion in modern society.
Like many words in the English language, the origin of the word plastic comes from Greek. The first kidney transplant was performed by a plastic surgeon who later received the Nobel Prize, Dr. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Cosmetic surgeries are also performed after breast cancer and mastectomy to recreate the natural shape of the breast that has been lost during the cancer removal process. Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty that deals both with improving a person's appearance and with reconstructing facial and body tissue defects due to diseases, trauma, or congenital disorders.
Reconstructive plastic surgery is usually done to improve function, but it can be done to approximate a normal shape or appearance. In fact, when searching for the adjective “plastic” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the first definition is “made of or composed of plastic”, which demonstrates this change and can give an idea of the many misconceptions currently associated with the specialty of plastic surgery in popular culture. Although the family doctor, pediatrician or radiologist complete three years of training to practice their profession after graduating from medical school, the ASPS-certified plastic surgeon must complete a minimum of 5 years of postgraduate surgical training. Although at that time it was not called plastic surgery, its first appearance dates back to 2000 BC.
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