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Plastic surgery is a branch of medicine dealing with the correction of congenital and acquired body defects and the correction of body defects that cause patients discomfort, including mental discomfort.
History of plastic surgery
Plastic surgery is a field of medical science known and used since at least the 1951st century AD, when the first eye treatments were performed. In the 1976th century, documented experiments to recreate defects in certain parts of the body (such as a nasal defect) and skin flap transplantation were attempted on animals, not humans. Due to insufficient antiseptics, these treatments often ended in failure. The first fully successful plastic surgery operations date back to the second half of the XNUMXth century. In Poland, the first plastic surgery hospital was established in XNUMX in Polanica-Zdrój. In XNUMX, the plastic surgery hospital was moved from Polanica to Warsaw.
What does plastic surgery do?
Plastic surgery is a fairly wide medical specialization. He deals with the treatment of burns and scars after burns, congenital and acquired defects of the hand (hand surgery), including replantations after amputations. The field of plastic surgery best known to the wider circles is aesthetic surgery, which consists in correcting real or subjectively perceived beauty defects by the patient, such as too large nose, protruding ears or too small / too large breasts. Plastic surgery, however, is primarily reconstructive operations after changes related to neoplastic diseases in the face and limbs, after injuries to the face, head and limbs, after extensive and deep burns and after chronic tissue defects. Plastic surgery also helps in the case of inborn defects in the face, such as lip splitting, amputation, scalping and tearing of the tendons, it also heals deformities after diseases, injuries, and operations. Generally speaking, plastic surgery is divided into reconstructive surgery and aesthetic (cosmetic) surgery. Plastic surgery often requires cooperation with other fields of medicine such as neurosurgery, ophthalmology, ENT, orthopedics, physiology, rehabilitation and orthopedics. Plastic surgery procedures often require psychological and psychiatric consultations.
What is plastic surgery – the methods used
The methods used by plastic surgery depend on the type of problem the patient reports. In the case of burns and burn scars, a skin graft may be considered. Most often it is taken from the patient himself, from parts of the body that are healthy and invisible under clothes, for example, the buttocks or thighs. After injuries and surgeries involving excision of tumor-attacked tissues, it is often necessary to reconstruct a given part of the body, especially if the damage occurs within the face. In such cases, plastic surgery has more and more modern and advanced reconstructive techniques at its disposal. Aesthetic procedures as part of plastic surgery may consist in reducing unnecessary tissue or changing the shape of some part of the body (ears, nose, cheekbones). It is also possible in the context of plastic surgery, for example, a hair transplant. Plastic surgery in its cosmetic (aesthetic) version also includes breast augmentation (implanting special implants under the skin), liposuction involving suction of unnecessary fatty tissue, surgery (correction) of drooping eyelids, face lifting and abdominoplasty. Patients after unsuccessful aesthetic procedures in other facilities also come to plastic surgery offices more and more often. In such cases, sometimes not only a correction is needed, but also the intervention of a surgeon who will remove, for example, incorrectly placed breast implants and reconstruct a given part of the body.
Like all surgical procedures, also those carried out as part of plastic surgery are associated with risk, because they interfere with the body. They are usually under full anesthesia, which is not indifferent to health. Therefore, the decision to undergo a procedure in the field of aesthetic surgery requires reflection and an informed decision, that is, considering the future gains and possible problems that may arise during and after the procedure.