What is Plastic Surgery?
Most people, when asked about the meaning of plastic surgery, usually assume that it involves placing a plastic substance in the body. This has always amused me somewhat, as if to picture an entire specialty centered around the use of Tupperware. Or better yet (thanks to mass media), to assume that our surgical field revolves solely around surgical enhancement of the female body. However, the real meaning stems from the greek word ‘-plastikos’, meaning to reshape or reform. Our specialty is a relatively new one, and arose out of need from WWI surgeons that needed to create new techniques to reconstruct injured soldiers. Our specialty continued to evolve, as we became experts at anatomy, discovering how different tissues receive their blood supply, and ultimately how to manipulate these tissues to close complex wounds. As such we became the ultimate problem solvers, the “surgeons’ surgeon” if you will, tackling complex issues and thinking outside the box. Our tools and techniques now range from pediatric craniofacial surgery, to hand surgery, to cancer and trauma reconstruction, complex wound care, and now aesthetic surgery.
The following quotation from a true surgical forefather truly sums up our purpose, and has often times kept me focused on the real task at hand.
“We restore, rebuild and make whole those parts which nature hath given but which fortune has taken away; not so much that it may delight the eye, but that it might buoy up the spirit, and help the mind of the afflicted.” -Gaspar Tagliacozzi, Plastic Surgery Pioneer, 1597
