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Plastic Surgery techniques are used to deal with a wide range of conditions and every part of the body from the toes to the top of the head

There are two branches of plastic and reconstructive surgery:

  • Reconstructive surgery is concerned with improving function or to minimise disfigurement as a result of things like accidents, disease, birth defects, trauma, disease and infection. Common reconstructive procedures include closure of wounds following accidents or after the removal of tumours, skin surgery following burns, breast reconstruction following mastectomy, cleft lip and palate surgery and reattachment of severed body parts.

Surgery that is primarily reconstructive also has an aesthetic or cosmetic component, with plastic surgeons concerned with normalising and improving appearance as well as improving function.

  • Cosmetic surgery is designed to improve a person’s aesthetic appearance by altering or reshaping facial or bodily features, or improving psychological wellbeing. These include procedures to reshape drooping eyelids, crooked or large noses, protruding ears, abnormal or asymmetrical body contours (including breasts of very different sizes and shapes), facial aging, loss of abdominal tone after childbirth and birth marks.

The Medical Council of New Zealand’s Statement on cosmetic procedures defines ‘cosmetic procedures’ as: “Operations and other procedures that revise or change the appearance, colour, texture, structure or position of normal bodily features with the sole intention of improving the patient’s appearance or self-esteem.” (Note: the statement does not cover procedures which improve a patient’s physical health and safety other than by improving their appearance and self-esteem.)

The Council has also produced a brochure for consumers: What to expect from your doctor when you have a cosmetic procedure.

Five hospitals in New Zealand have plastic surgery units – Middlemore, Waikato, Hutt, Christchurch and Dunedin. However plastic surgeons are routinely called on to operate in most large public hospitals and there are visiting services at hospitals in other centres.

Plastic and reconstructive surgical training has a philosophy that the repaired areas should not only work well but look good as well. This means plastic and reconstructive surgery makes a contribution to other surgical areas, including ear nose and throat surgery, orthopaedics and cancer surgery.