{"id":420,"date":"2013-05-11T15:25:30","date_gmt":"2013-05-11T15:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/?p=420"},"modified":"2013-05-20T08:46:34","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T08:46:34","slug":"why-the-word-plastic-in-plastic-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/why-the-word-plastic-in-plastic-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the word &#8220;Plastic&#8221; in Plastic Surgery?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Reason for this entry<\/h3>\n<p>I frequently get asked this question about what is plastic surgery in our Modesto, CA surgery practice. \u00a0I live in the world of surgery and of course it&#8217;s obvious to me the explanation, but I&#8217;ve just started to realize that the word &#8220;plastic&#8221; has some different meanings to those outside of the plastic surgery field.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_433\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/a-dr-tammy-wu-IMG_9517-Copy-smaller.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-433\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-433\" alt=\"Dr. Tammy Wu, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon, Modesto, CA\" src=\"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/a-dr-tammy-wu-IMG_9517-Copy-smaller-300x199.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/a-dr-tammy-wu-IMG_9517-Copy-smaller-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/a-dr-tammy-wu-IMG_9517-Copy-smaller-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/a-dr-tammy-wu-IMG_9517-Copy-smaller-624x415.jpg 624w, https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/a-dr-tammy-wu-IMG_9517-Copy-smaller.jpg 1037w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-433\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Tammy Wu, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon, Modesto, CA<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>The American Board of Plastic Surgery Definition of Plastic Surgery<\/h3>\n<p>The ABPS defines plastic surgery to be a field that deals with the reconstruction, repair, or replacement of physical defects of form or function involving the skin, muscles, face\/head, hand, extremities, <a href=\"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/tammywumd\/\">breast<\/a>, trunk, external genitalia or cosmetic enhancement of these areas of the body.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The plastic surgeon&#8217;s skills in making reconstructive decisions and surgeries are essential fundamentals for <a href=\"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\">cosmetic surgery<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 14px;\">The plastic surgeon uses cosmetic surgical principles to improve overall appearance<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>There are two main subsets of Plastic Surgery<\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 14px;\"><strong>Reconstructive Plastic Surgery<\/strong> &#8211; for cancer, birth defects, deviations from &#8220;accepted standards, to improve\/normalize function of a part of the body.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>Cosmetic Plastic Surgery<\/strong> &#8211; aesthetic surgery in the absence of actual deformity or trauma.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>How about the terms &#8220;Cosmetic Surgeon&#8221; vs. &#8220;Plastic Surgeon&#8221;<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 14px;\">This has been a recent eye opener for me. \u00a0 I have originally been somewhat opposed to the term <em>cosmetic<\/em> surgeon, because it perhaps denotes lesser training than a <em>plastic<\/em> surgeon in my own world.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>However, I&#8217;m starting to understand that some people think the term &#8220;plastic&#8221; means &#8220;fake&#8221; like plastic is a form of fake glass. \u00a0Or a plastic form of something else like wood or leather, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Or perhaps some even think in addition to &#8220;fake&#8221;, plastic could mean &#8220;superficial&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Or to some plastic surgery could mean the surgical insertion of plastic\/artificial grafts into the body.<\/li>\n<li>Or it looks so smooth it looks like plastic.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/plastic-bots.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-430\" alt=\"plastic-bots\" src=\"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/plastic-bots-300x199.jpeg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Gosh, I&#8217;ve really never actually thought of it that way, because I&#8217;ve been in my own world where Plastic Surgery in my mind was placed so highly up on a pedestal, because this is what my wife (Dr. Tammy Wu) did, and she was board certified in Plastic Surgery. \u00a0So the term &#8220;cosmetic&#8221; never got used too much.<\/li>\n<li>Let me explain my own thought process: \u00a0The term &#8220;<em>plastic<\/em>&#8221; in plastic surgery got derived from the Greek word <em>plastikos<\/em> which means &#8220;moldable&#8221; &#8211; so the body is plastic &#8211; meaning able to be molded and shaped.<\/li>\n<li>Sometimes &#8220;cosmetic&#8221; got used by surgeons who practice aesthetic surgery who weren&#8217;t board certified by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abplsurg.org\/moddefault.aspx\">ABPS (American Board of Plastic Surgery)<\/a>. \u00a0So yet another reason why I&#8217;ve never liked using the word &#8220;cosmetic&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>But I like to get educated and I like to know what others think. \u00a0I&#8217;d like to thank those that have told me that &#8220;cosmetic&#8221; or &#8220;aethetic&#8221; are more pleasing terms to them than &#8220;plastic.&#8221; &#8211; I only really thought of &#8220;plastic&#8221; before as &#8220;plasticity&#8221; &#8211; the ability to reshape, remold, re-influence. \u00a0Not as bottles of plastic&#8230; ah ha, I get it now. \u00a0But how unfortunate, I say.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Discussion with Dr. Tammy Wu, Plastic Surgeon<\/h3>\n<p>Dr. Wu couldn&#8217;t even understand the quote from Joan Rivers,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I let her think about it for a whole day, and she still couldn&#8217;t figure it out. \u00a0I told her that the &#8220;plastic&#8221; that Joan Rivers is referring to is the plastic material. \u00a0So, I think this is educational for us, that we need to try to understand the rest of the world when it comes to perhaps some confusion over what is &#8220;plastic&#8221; surgery.<\/p>\n<h3>So I&#8217;ll give it a try and use the word Cosmetic Surgery:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;\">Visit our <a href=\"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\">Modesto Cosmetic Surgery<\/a> website&#8217;s home page<\/span><\/li>\n<li>We specialize in Cosmetic Surgery of the face, breasts, tummy, legs, and veins.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reason for this entry I frequently get asked this question about what is plastic surgery in our Modesto, CA surgery practice. \u00a0I live in the world of surgery and of course it&#8217;s obvious to me the explanation, but I&#8217;ve just started to realize that the word &#8220;plastic&#8221; has some different meanings to those outside of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422,"href":"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surgerytoday.com\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}