While the concept of plastic surgery is now so incredibly common, there are few who would not know what it is. But yet, I will occasionally get asked this question by a new patient during our consultation…’now tell me where the plastic goes’…or…’will the plastic used in the operation get infected?’
Indicating that some still believe that the name ‘plastic’ in plastic surgery relates to a material. For the sake of clarification, plastic surgery got its name before the synthetic material that we know as plastic today was ever invented. Plastic Surgery as a medical specialty became organized in the late 1930s and the use of the name plastic comes from the Greek word, plastikos, meaning to mold or shape. Thus, plastic surgery is surgery used to change the shape of tissues, whether it be for reconstructive or cosmetic purposes. And speaking of plastic material, there is actually only one operation in all of plastic surgery that uses a real plastic material…that of the use of acrylic in synthetic cranioplasty or skull reconstruction.
Dr Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana