Plastic surgery techniques and applications

Plastic Surgery -- Reasons to Support Plastic Surgery

Plastic surgery is not simply vanity surgery. Instead, plastic surgery can enhance a patient's self-esteem, improve the patient's overall sense of health, and even improve a patient's career prospects and earnings. This is why plastic surgery is not just a waste of money. Health insurance may cover some procedures like breast reduction, if the procedure also improves a person's health. All of these facts demonstrate that plastic surgery is not just about vanity.

First of all, plastic surgery is not as intrusive or as dramatic as it used to be. People who get plastic surgery today are not just older women seeking face lifts. One of the most common plastic procedures is pinning a patient's protruding ears, a surgery equally common for young children and men. Noses can be slightly modified to improve a person's appearance and also to help a person who has difficulty breathing. Breasts can be made smaller or larger, lips can be made fuller, freckles which may turn into potentially cancer-causing spots can be removed by laser surgery, and liposuction can remove excess fat from thighs, stomach, buttocks, hips, knees or ankles. People who have lost a great deal of weight can remove the excess hanging skin that has not shrunk along with their weight loss ("Cosmetic Surgery: The Facts," the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, 2007).

All of these procedures show how many people seeking cosmetic surgery enhance rather than change their looks. Many people reduce their breasts or reshape their noses so they can look like themselves, only better. The result is often heightened self-esteem, as the patient is no longer the child with the big nose, mocked by his or her friends. and, as might also be obvious from this list, or not so obvious, there is a great deal of overlap between surgeries performed for cosmetic reasons and health reasons. For example, a woman with overly large breasts may experience chronic backaches, have difficulty playing her favorite sports, and have problems finding clothing if her chest is disproportionately large in comparison to the rest of her body (Korman, 2007). A person with a deviated septum may benefit from a nose reshaping. Women whose breasts have become enlarged after pregnancy or nursing, patients who have been in car accidents and through other traumatic physical incidents can benefit psychologically and physically, if the memory of that trauma is erased from their body. If surgery can improve a patient's health as well as a patient's appearance, health insurance may cover all or part of the expense. Feeling healthier and feeling better also often means that a patient will eat better, exercise more, and treat their new physical body with greater care.