Electrical injuries comprise only a small fraction of burn injuries admitted to specialized centers. High voltage injuries may not be survivable. The flow of current through the body interferes with tissues conducting electricity on their own (nerves, heart) and expends its energy on tissues with highest resistance, the bones, causing high temperature damage from the […]
The Culture of Aesthetic Surgery
It is entirely personal. The motivation to seek enhancement of physical appearance (e. g. shape) or rejuvenation (e. g. the reconstruction of a youthful shape) should come from within the individual person. The individual perceives some aspect of his/her shape, which in their totality makes up his or her appearance, as a problem in a […]
Plastic Surgery – A Plastic Surgeon’s Perspective
Despite its overwhelming media presence plastic surgery continues to be the most misunderstood surgical specialty. It is my contention that this is the case because plastic surgery does not claim any specific disease (e. g. coronary artery disease in case of cardiac surgery) as its own nor does it focus on any single organ system […]
CEO Announcement: Aesthetic Medicine and Skin Therapy
I am pleased to announce the cooperation of Trinidad Institute of Plastic Surgery and A. M. E. Skin Care Center. A. M. E. Skin Care Center is a full service skin therapy clinic, owned an operated by Areana Emmanuel, certified aesthetician. A native of Trinidad, Areana has been intrigued with the beauty industry from a […]
Correcting Crooked Noses and Faces
The correlation between structure and appearance is most straightforward when the skeleton is involved. Today’s case involved a young women after a motor vehicle accident more than a decade ago. The forehead was uneven, the brows in unequal position, old hardware palpable over the roof of the eye socket and the nose was crooked and […]
Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery Abroad for the Medical Tourist
I would like to look at the medical tourist more as a discerning costumer in an ever shrinking world where all of us are moving closer and closer together and our lives become intertwined in a real-time environment. “Abroad” is also a very relative term. Some of my patients in my US practice come from […]
What is cosmetic surgery, what is reconstructive surgery, what is everything in between ?
All too often a difference is made between reconstructive and cosmetic surgery, most often to elevate the status of reconstructive surgery and lower the one of cosmetic surgery. I am a cosmetic surgeon and I do complex reconstrucive surgery. So I never could understand how someone could come up with something so artificial, neither based […]
Difficult Wrists
During my hand fellowship I once asked my program director Al Hess MD why he had become a hand surgeon after completing his training in orthopaedic surgery. His answer was “In the other stuff I had become so perfect that it was boring”. Wrist surgery is a prime example why hand surgery is never boring, […]
Fronto-orbital advancement for correction of craniosynostosis
Numerous craniofacial deformities are characterized by orbital dystopia and anterior skull base deformities. Examples are Crouzon’s syndrome, Apert’s syndrome, coronal and metopic craniosynostosis. Two concepts developed by Paul Tessier (the father of craniofacial surgery) in the 1960’s are crucial to the understanding of the correction of these deformities. Firstly, the superficial skeleton of the eyesocket […]