Plastic surgery is a branch of medicine that deals with
surgical improvisations of body parts, for any reason such as functional or
aesthetics. History says that surgery was practiced to rectify aesthetic
defects of the body in the ancient times. Conventional medicine began to
utilize surgery for functional improvisations only in the 19th
century. Dr. John Peter Mettauer, the first plastic surgeon in the
US, performed his first
surgery in 1827.
Plastic surgery, the term was coined from the Greek word
plastikos. The principle of the treatment is focused on the word meaning, to
shape or mould, structural defects of any body part such as nose, eyes,
cheeks, lips, chin, face, neck, breast, ears, arms, abdomen, waist & hips,
baldness, vitiligo, etc. The development of new effective techniques increased
the success rate of these treatments and thus they have become very popular.
Many people resort to plastic surgery due to their inherent intuition to
become more beautiful.
Plastic surgery is broadly categorized into two;
reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Some of the plastic surgeons
specialize into surgeries of a particular part of the body such as the hand,
maxillofacial, face, nose, ear, etc. Reconstructive surgery is mainly
performed to conceal or revitalize an injured part caused by trauma, surgery,
or casualty. Micro surgery is an effective technique in reconstructive
surgery, in which tissue flaps from other parts of body such as skin, muscle,
bone, fat or a combination, is grafted onto the injured part. Blood vessels
are connected to the grafted part by suturing even the smallest arteries and
veins.
Cosmetic surgery is performed to improve the beauty of a
particular part of the body, so as to enhance the overall appearance. Some of
the visible geriatric changes, due to aging can be also rectified with plastic
surgery. Apart from plastic surgery, cosmetic surgeons use certain tissue
filler injections and surface peeling procedures for treatments. The common
cosmetic surgery procedures include blepharoplasty, augmentation mammaplasty,
buttock augmentation, labiaplasty, rhinoplasty, otoplasty, rhytidectomy,
lipectomy or liposuction, chin augmentation, cheek augmentation mesotherapy,
and bariatric body contouring.
