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 […]
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 […]
CEO Announcement: Telemedicine and Virtual Consultations at Trinidad Institute of Plastic Surgery
Trinidad Institute of Plastic Surgery is proud to announce to availability of a multimedia telemedicine, virtual conferencing and virtual consultation service starting February 1, 2012. The system made available by Bioengineering Associates, our US based management and healthcare consulting company, allows voice, video and chat interaction through a virtual private network server. It is intended […]
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 […]
Six Packs and the Male Abdominal Wall
A not infrequent request by male clients is the “six pack” stomach and if there is a cosmetic procedure to enhance/produce it. The look of a “six pack” stomach is created by a very well trained midline muscle group – two about 10cm wide muscles on each side of the midline running from the chest […]
Options in Breast Reconstruction
Breast cancer affects one out of eight women over their life time in the US. All current treatment strategies have a surgical component, which ranges from a lumpectomy to a modified radical mastectomy. As a consequence, different degrees of deformity arise, from mild asymmetry to complete absence of both breasts. The physical deformity has 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 […]
Nose Job Before and After Pictures: Myth and Reality in Rhinoplasty
Nose job before and after pictures are an important topic and they are a difficult tool to use correctly and to understand appropriately. Rhinoplasty may well be the most demanding operation of all plastic surgery procedures in the face. The position of the nose in the center of the face, the region which the brain […]
Tummy tuck or Liposuction
Mini abdominoplasty – tummy tuck, full abdominoplasty – tummy tuck, panniculectomy – excision of fat and skin only – and liposuction and liposculpture each have a specific set of indications, deformities addressed and possible improvements. The main determinants influencing the optimal choice of procedure are skin elasticity, excess of fat and laxity of the musculofascial […]