This is an interesting guest editorial in KevinMD.com by a prominent reconstructive plastic surgeon. Not all of us specialize in cosmetics!
A new crop of medical students will begin a residency in plastic surgery this summer. They have worked long and hard to secure these coveted spots. As a service to them and to the profession, I wanted to take this opportunity to help make their path a little easier by offering a bit of advice.
When asked what you do, simply say that you are a surgeon. I avoid saying plastic surgeon because it invariably prompts awkward facial expressions and comments to the effect that I am just the person they’ve been waiting to meet, nod nod, wink wink! In many people’s minds, plastic surgery is synonymous with cosmetic surgery, yet I do no cosmetic surgery. This usually strikes people as very odd. A plastic surgeon who doesn’t do cosmetic surgery is like an auto-mechanic who doesn’t fix cars, or a teacher who doesn’t teach.
So what do I do? Strictly speaking I should describe myself as a reconstructive microsurgeon, although that usually draws blank stares. The truth is that while cosmetic surgery is probably the most visible and perhaps the most glamorous aspect of plastic surgery, it’s a relatively small part of the specialty. The breadth of the specialty fills a six-volume Plastic Surgery textbook I edited this year. Only one of these volumes is dedicated to aesthetic surgery.
Some say that plastic surgeons are the last general surgeons. We don’t own a disease like cancer doctors do, and we don’t own a part of the body like heart surgeons do. We work all over the body on all kinds of diseases and frequently with other physicians in a multidisciplinary group. We’re not only misunderstood by the public, but also by many of our medical colleagues.
– See more at: https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2013/06/plastic-surgeon-requires-lot-explaining.html#sthash.NrdBecS5.dpuf
