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 […]
Incisions for Breast Augmentation
Incisions in breast augmentation serve to get access to the plane under the breast gland or pectoralis major chest wall muscle where the pocket to hold the implant will be created. Factors such as patient preference, choice of implant, choice of plane and size and shape of the non augmented breast and areola influence the […]
Breast Reconstruction
This strategy of reconstruction uses the patient’s own tissues to shape a breast mound. There are several advantages, which make autologous reconstruction the method of choice in a variety of situations. Breast reconstruction to correct the deformities arising from breast cancer treatments (mastectomy, quadrantectomy) is a frequent request, given that one out of eight women […]
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 […]
PIP Implants – Removal or Exchange after Breast Augmentation
So Pandora’s box was finally opened. The eventual worldwide recall of French Polyimplant Prothese (PIP) silicone breast implants puts a final exclamation mark behind what everybody knows but hates to admit – cheap is bad, to be cheap you have to cut corners to cut costs and cutting corners – such as using industrial instead […]
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 […]
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 […]