Why Cosmetic Surgery Still Gets A Bad Rap

Mostly it’s about misunderstanding.  Although the words cosmetic and aesthetic have recently become common in denoting types of plastic surgery, many people do not differentiate among the three- especially people who have not benefitted from any of these types of surgeries.  At the same time, there are many people- including professionals of the industry- who insist that the terms are basically interchangeable.

At the most basic, possibly they are interchangeable; however, it should be noted that of the people who have benefitted from such surgeries, there is usually a differentiation of the terms.  Plastic surgery commonly denotes a heavier duty procedure which replaces or reforms an injured or damaged body part, while aesthetic surgery is often what takes place afterward, to further enhance appearance after the basic structure has been repaired.  While these terms are largely interchanged, the term cosmetic tends to denote more elective procedures, and cosmetic is often interchanged with aesthetic.

Let’s take a look at the term plastic surgery.  Plastic surgery is defined as a branch of surgery concerned with repairing some sort of external damage to a body part, or area of the body.  It seems that just the word ‘plastic’ is enough to fool people into preconceptions which are not necessarily true.  The word actually comes from the old Greek word plastos, or plassein, which means to form or to mold- and action rather than a thing.  So the word plastic, when used with the word surgery, is actually not connected to our modern day term meant to denote the material made from synthetic polymer.   When we named this material plastic, it had already been know by several other material based names until finally we settles on plastic, of the Greek for moldable.

From its inception, plastic surgery has been conceived as a way of restoring parts which people have either lost due to burns, cancers, and etc., or have been born without- or born with disfigurement of a body part.  In the beginning, procedures were crude and painful; however, as time as lapsed anesthetics have taken the place of any pain involved and the procedures have become well-learned and commonplace.  Today, partly due to the common availability of cosmetic procedures, the term plastic surgery- along with its counter-terms cosmetic and aesthetic surgery- still has quite the bad rap with those who are unfamiliar.  This is part of the reason for the newer terminologies.  However, cosmetic and aesthetic are terms which not only attempt to counter the unfavorable term plastic, but also help to signify the reasoning behind a procedure. These days it does not require a horrible disfigurement to qualify for- or to desire- a reconstructive surgery. All it requires is a persistent dissatisfaction with a particular physical quality.  Combine that with the modernity and accessibility of procedures today, and you’ll see why so many have let their reservations go with the past and allowed themselves the luxury of the choice.

For more information about these types of procedures, visit http://www.jaycalvertmd.com/  for detailed information about his procedures and terminology.  He also has a very informative blog at http://drjaycalvert.blogspot.com/ which is very helpful.