Cosmetic Surgery Times - April 2009 - (Page 34) 34 COSMETIC SURGERY TIMES | COSMETIC SURGERY TIMES Food for thought GUEST CONTRIBUTOR Absent from the hospitals, do plastic surgeons risk becoming mere ‘surgical dessert’? Andrew Wexler, M.D., M.A., F.A.C.S. I AM A PLASTIC AND RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGEON. I work for Kaiser Permanente in Southern California. Every year, I see thousands of patients for a full spectrum of plastic surgery problems from complex craniofacial disorders to simple nevi. Yes, I also do cosmetic surgery. In Southern California Kaiser, there are almost 40 plastic surgeons in the region, yet every week a patient will say to me, “I didn’t know Kaiser had plastic surgeons.” As if plastic surgery would somehow be out of place in the largest, most comprehensive health care system in the country. Have we really disappeared from hospitals and ERs so completely that we are seen as outside the realm of mainstream medicine — surgical “dessert” but not main course healers? In our out-of-hospital boutique practices, have we lost the core values which brought us to medicine and surgery in the first place? We started as students with a sense of compassion; we trained as surgeons to be healers. Are we still feeding the medically hungry — or simply providing a second dessert to those who have already eaten? Of course, we can do both. But in order to do so, we cannot allow ourselves to lose the essential reconstructive core of our training that allows us to reconstruct broken bodies and restore broken spirits. Residents look to us as their models. Is it the sports car they see? Is it Dr. Nip and Dr. Tuck who are their role models, and if so, what is the future for patients who rely on the core skills of plastic surgery to restore their anatomy and their lives? We owe it to the next generation of plastic surgeons to be seen in the ERs, to be part of a hospital environment where residents train. We owe it to our patients and future patients to maintain the skills that were handed down by the generations of plastic surgeons before us. We all know the contributions of the great leaders of our surgical history — Gilles, Converse, Kazanjian, Millard, Rees and Tessier. For me, it is the voice of Gaspar Tagliacozzi which, 400 years later, still speaks to our credo: “We repair and restore that which Nature has given, but which Fortune has taken away. Not so much that it please the eye of the beholder, but that it buoy the spirit of the afflicted.” The quote hangs on my door; it is my daily bread. H Andrew Wexler, M.D., M.A., F.A.C.S, is the Regional Surgical Director of Craniofacial Services at Southern California Kaiser Permanente and Clinical Professor of Plastic Surgery at USC. PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPHER’S CHOICE/PETER DAZELEY/GETTYIMAGES
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