Boob Doctor?
Not exactly. The popular belief, strengthened by the media, is that plastic surgeons are simply “boob doctors”. The image of plastic surgery is so linked to the aesthetic side of it that many forget that we, as plastic surgeons, are seasoned surgeons. They also forget that majority of plastic surgery is reconstructive. As plastic and reconstructive surgeons we are the ultimate surgeons in what we do. We operate from the head to toe. Our skills can reshape the face, rejuvenate the eyes, reconstruct the defects caused by cancer surgery, reshape ears and noses, create windpipes for breathing, create food pipes for eating, cover an infected heart after heart surgery, treat burn victims, reconstruct the breast, rejuvenate the breast, cover chest wall defects from trauma and from cancer surgery, rejuvenate the abdomen, cover the abdomen from birth defect anomalies and traumatic situations, repair injured sexual organs, change the sexual organs, help cover the wounds of trauma in the legs, lift the thighs and etc, etc, etc…
The human body has no boundaries for the skill of a qualified plastic surgeon. These boundaries are also being examined in laboratories of top institutions and the operating rooms caring for our wounded in the recent conflicts that we have been involved in. Noses are being covered by forehead skin from bomb blasts. Methods of muscle regeneration are being used in pigs to grow thigh muscles of soldiers that have lost their leg muscles in a blast. Ears are being grown in the laboratory and prepared for transplantation into soldiers who have lost those parts. Skin cells are being sprayed on burn victims of a war. The list goes on and on. These are inspiring and proud elements of reconstructive surgery that is at the forefront of rebuilding the function of the body. These are new frontiers in plastic surgery. Recently, The Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM), funded by the federal government, gave $300 million in grants to top Universities that are involved in these exciting disciplines of plastic surgery-tissue regeneration. Read more here.