What is the Difference Between a Plastic Surgeon and a Cosmetic Surgeon?

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There are a few differences between a plastic surgeon and a cosmetic surgeon.

Cosmetic Surgery

The first difference is that the cosmetic surgery is going to focus on enhancing the appearance of the person. This means that the doctor is going to try to improve the person’s aesthetic appeal, the proportion and the symmetry of their face.

Therefore, the surgeon is going to be able to perform surgery on the body, head, and neck. The cosmetic surgery is going to be elective is areas that will be treated are working properly, so you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.

There are a variety of different types of cosmetic surgery that are performed on a patient. The first type is the breast enhancement. This is going to be an augmentation to the breasts, a breast lift, or a reduction to the breasts.

The second type is facial contouring. This is going to include surgery on the chin, rhinoplasty or surgery on the nose, or the cheek enhancement. The third type is a facial rejuvenation. This is going to include a face lift, neck lift, eyelid lift, or a brow lift.

The fourth type is body contouring. This is when the surgeon is going to liposuction, tummy tuck, and gynecomastia treatment. The fifth type is skin rejuvenation. This is going to be botox, filler treatments, and laser resurfacing.

Plastic Surgery

The second difference is that the plastic surgery is going to focus more on repairing some of the defects that a person might have so that they can function normally. Basically, it is going to be a reconstruction of the face or the body because of a birth defect, burns, trauma, or a special disease.

Some of the best examples of plastic surgery is burn repair surgery, breast reconstruction, hand surgery, congenital defect repair like a extremity defect repair or cleft palate, lower extremity reconstruction, and scar revision surgery.

Training

The third difference is that the surgeon is going to need additional training for cosmetic surgery. The plastic surgery in Missouri City Texas training is going to be completed through the post graduate residency program.

There are two different routes that the surgeons are going to be able to take if they choose to. The first route is the residency training that is going to be a combination of three years of general surgery and the three years of plastic surgery.

The second route is an independent residency program in general surgery that lasted for five years and they will follow that up with a three year residency program for plastic surgery.

During this training, the surgeon might receive some training on cosmetic surgery but it is not going to be everything that they need to do in order to perform cosmetic surgery properly.

The cosmetic surgery training is going to happen after the person has done through residency training. In order for the person to be board certified, they are going to need to complete one year of the American Board of Cosmetic Surgery and the fellowship training from the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery.

During this fellowship, the person is going to receive all of the training that they need to do the cosmetic procedures on the body, face, and breast along with the cosmetic treatments that might not require any surgery.

But this means that the surgeon is going to be able to do about 300 different types of cosmetic surgery procedures. If you have a certain discipline in mind, then you are going to need the additional 3 to 5 year residency program.