Aesthetic Plastic Surgery - The Science and the Art
If you are looking to have aesthetic plastic surgery, your choice of surgeon will be based on more than accreditations on the wall, the prestige associated with a medical school, and where she ranked in her class. Aesthetic plastic surgery, more than almost any other surgical discipline, is a field where science and art unite in every procedure. Even for reconstructive procedures, which are medically necessary, plastic surgeons take into account natural features, figure, and form.
Even simple reconstructive surgeries can require an art of sculpting figures and features. A basic nasal reconstruction, for example, needs to be gently eased into place. The transplant tissue is finessed slowly and artfully, rather than a simply “cut and pasted.”
Reconstruction of breasts after mastectomy is another example of the art of aesthetic plastic surgery. Superficially it may seem that when one breast is being reshaped or reformed that the surgeon would have an easier time since he can follow the visual template of the remaining breast. In truth, this situation is extremely challenging for the aesthetic plastic surgeon since donor tissue from the abdomen must be harvested and transformed to match the existing breast.
There is a science to aesthetic
plastic surgery as well. A detailed knowledge of the anatomy at all levels is necessary. Any graft needs a proper and sufficient blood supply or the newly constructed tissue will fail or succumb to serious infection. There are various types of skin throughout the body with pores of various sizes in different locations and varying thickness of the hair that grows there. Will the skin in the donor and placement site close and grow together properly? Will the new region of skin and tissue heal uniformly to prevent dimpling or furrows? All of these factors rely on a knowledge of science to produce the art of aesthetic plastic surgery.
Fortunately there are many supplemental procedures that can facilitate aesthetic plastic surgery. Dermal fillers, dermabrasion, laser resurfacing and other techniques can improve upon the large scale reconstructions. In fact, certain peripheral areas benefit from aesthetic plastic surgery in a target area. For example, if the wrinkles in the face are going to be filled to achieve a younger, healthier look, fat cells from the belly, perhaps obtained from liposuction, may be cleaned, purified and injected. Thus the belly gets smaller and the face appears younger.
Sometimes aesthetic plastic surgery can be performed by surgeons other than plastic or cosmetic types. It is not uncommon for general or oncologic surgeons that are performing abdominal surgery for a given reason to draw the skin of the belly taut and take pains to minimize scar formation along the incision site. In this way, patients having a life-saving surgery may also enjoy the aesthetic benefits of a small tummy tuck!
Even back in the Renaissance Period, Leonardo da Vinci studied what made men and women attractive and attempted to define that beauty in mathematical terms. While standards of beauty change with time and among cultures, aesthetic plastic surgeons still seek to provide their patients with the best possible cosmetic result using the science and art that has been cultivated through years of experience and, in some cases, natural gifts.
