Plastic Surgery: Right or Wrong

For the longest time when I heard "plastic surgery" I thought of Joan Rivers or Michael Jackson. I thought of liposuction and breast implants. I saw plastic surgery as a shallow industry giving people false hopes and allowing people to chase the unobtainable: perfection. I then realized that pop-culture has presented the average person with a small fraction of the procedures that make up this practice. Nose-jobs, lyposuction and breast implants are a few that many are familiar with. However a great deal of plastic surgery, while still cosmetic is quite amazing. I have recently enrolled in Boces which is a program that offers college preparation and career training. I plan on taking pre-medical classes when I get to college, but for now Iam taking a surgical assisting class. I have learned a great deal, mostly about the art of plastic surgery. Here are a few procedures performed by plastic surgeons that take a great deal of talent, experience and skill, I believe them to be an art.

Nerve Reattachment: We all have nerves allover our bodies, there nerves can become severed and disable whatever function they are intended to preform. In my class we learned about a man whos face was badly cut, one of these lacerations severed the nerve(I forget the lengthy medical name) that allows us to smile. Plastic surgeons where able to use a donor nerve from the mans calf and reattach this nerve in his cheek, allowing him to smile again. Nerves aren't the only thing that plastic surgeons are able to reattach. They can reattach fingers, tendons. Plastic Surgeons can give us back what would be considered gone forever twenty years ago.

Breast Reduction: Cows are given hormones, primarily estrogen so that they can produce more milk. The downside to this is that these hormones are in our milk, our cheese and other dairy products. Girls as young as seven are showing breast development and beginning to menstruate! Not only are these hormones making these girls develop early they are giving them very large breasts. This can drastically effect there lives, making them unable to run, or play sports even with sports bras. But now there is a surgery that can reduce the size of their breasts, preventing back troubles and allowing them to be more active.

And perhaps the most amazing of the procedures preformed by plastic surgeons is the facial transplant. Although a full facial transplant has not yet been done sucessfully, partial transplants have been preformed on burn victims. I made this post so people can see the real plastic surgery, the repair, reattachment and reconstruction of what has been destroyed, scarred or severed. Although these advances in plastic surgery are astonishing the industry is still plauged by the simpler cosmetic procedures. Which brings up the real question: Can you sell beauty? Can we modify ourselves surgically?

Please post comments with your opinions on plastic surgery.