3 ms·

The amount of elective cosmetic surgery to the body and face this last decade and the normalization of it has made that statement sounds too obvious to me.

• itishappy 3y ago
  "Transplant" is the critical factor here. Introducing foreign tissue is significantly more complicated than shuffling around native tissue.
  • graphe 3y ago
    You're right I confused it with grafting. I thought that facial transplants meant grafting 'extra' skin onto the face. Still think there's carryover from other fields like plastic surgery and probably cancer treatments to make this easier.
    • spondylosaurus 3y ago
      Plastic surgery isn't inherently cosmetic; plastic surgery training includes things like facial reconstruction/burn grafts, plus some minor training in related cosmetic procedures. Cosmetic surgery training OTOH focuses strictly on cosmetic procedures. It's not uncommon for a single doctor to be both a licensed plastic surgeon and a licensed cosmetic surgeon, but they are distinct licenses.
      • devilbunny 3y ago
        If you're speaking about the US, you are incorrect on the legality. A license is issued by a state to a physician, and carries no qualification of specialty. A licensed physician can do anything for which they have informed consent. A board certification is a piece of paper put out by an Academy or Society or College that says a physician has been trained in a particular specialty and passed their post-training exams. I am a board certified anesthesiologist. I also hold a license to practice medicine in the state where I live. I can do neurosurgery, if I can find a facility and a patient willing to let me (and although that sounds like a joke, how else would you describe placing an epidural for labor during childbirth but "minor neurosurgery"? Which is why a license to practice medicine is necessarily broad.). That doesn't mean anyone would insure me, or that any sane hospital would let me, but it would be legal.
        • spondylosaurus 3y ago
          Ah, good terminology catch there—I did indeed mean "board certified" :) And re. epidurals, "minor neurosurgery" honestly sounds about right! Doesn't that thing literally go in your spinal cord? You can't mess around there unless you know what you're doing...
          • devilbunny 3y ago
            Inside the spinal column (the bones), not into the cord itself but just outside a thin layer (the dura mater - Latin for "tough mother") around it (thus "epidural" - "outside the dura"). Labor epidurals (which are most epidurals) are placed in the lower lumbar region. The five lumbar vertebrae are creatively named L1 through L5; the spinal cord itself ends around L2, and below that level the spinal column just provides a space for the nerve roots to be protected. Whatever; the local anesthetic diffuses across it just fine. But yes, you do have to keep in mind things like timing of anticoagulant usage (it's bad if you have a bleeding spot that doesn't want to stop, but it's catastrophic if you have a bleeding spot inside a bony cavity that can't expand - you can easily have a big bleed whose pressure compresses and damages the spinal cord higher up).
• PeterisP 3y ago
  I believe that historically the direction is the other way around - that elective cosmetic facial surgery was enabled by the experience of the many surgeons performing the many reconstructive surgeries for facial injuries which were needed on a mass scale in the years during and after the world wars.