Plastic Surgery

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Plastic Surgery Intro

Plastic surgery is a commonly used term used in reference to surgery generally known as cosmetic surgery. This is not strictly correct and I shall try to explain why here below in the following article.

Though many assume that plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery are one and the same there are a great many plastic surgeons working in the US that would strongly disagree with that generalization.

The practice of plastic surgery is overseen by the American Board of Medical Specialties (who are the official entity whose responsibility it is to oversee the physician certification of plastic surgeons) whereas there is no such board to oversee the work of a cosmetic surgeon and it is widely said that any doctor can perform cosmetic surgery but not plastic surgery. The distinction between the two is very important as many countries have bodies to oversee plastic surgery but not cosmetic surgery and this should always be a consideration.

Plastic surgery is the surgery performed to repair any damage or defects to the form or function of parts of the human body. The practice of plastic surgery can involve cosmetic surgery and other aesthetic surgery and reconstructive surgery. In general the plastic surgeon will specialize in one particular area of surgery. Such surgery may be the repair of a cleft lip or a cleft palate which is an important procedure needing vast experience and understanding and certainly a world apart from procedures such as breast augmentation or enlargement.

I used the comparison between the reconstructive surgery to rectify a cleft lip with that of breast augmentation as many assume that breast augmentation is purely the realm of the cosmetic surgeon. However this could not be further from the truth, as I have already mentioned, plastic surgery involves the practice of cosmetic procedures. To make the distinction clearer (though rather generalized) let us say that the plastic surgeon may carry out a mastopexy, which is the raising or reshaping of the breast, following a full or partial mastectomy (breast removal). By comparison the cosmetic surgeon would operate upon the breast which is perfectly healthy and normal but not to the liking of the owner or even the partner of the owner!

The simple comparison above may well be crude and hard hitting but I think it shows why so many surgeons who practice plastic surgery do not like being referred to as cosmetic surgeons. I suppose that another way in which to distinguish between the two is that the cosmetic surgery procedures used in plastic surgery are performed on those patients who are either suffering physically or psychologically from the effects of the problem to be corrected. Whereas cosmetic surgery procedures carried out during purely cosmetic surgery are used on patients that suffer far less from such and maybe even not at all. It must be noted that the lines of separation are often blurred and many well known surgeons would argue such things for hours.

For this reason the articles below may well be equally applicable to cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery. We have the articles below to help you understand the many different procedures, their uses and their effects.

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See also: Cosmetic Surgery