plastic surgery

Cosmetic surgery is where the money is at.
When I asked my preceptor the percentage of reconstructive surgery:cosmetic, he said about 75% reconstructive, but wanted more like 50% - but you have to wait until your name gets around a bit.

Looking through the cosmetic surgery photos, the resident made an offhanded statement how one nose job made a girl into a 4 to a 9.

Watching my preceptor inject botox (actually a freaking horrible -but diluted- toxin) and talk about restalyn (which is interesting because it's hyaluronic acid), the woman was talking about how she wanted to get it for her nose as well and then maybe considering Restalyn and how it really was an addiction. Preceptor laughed and said some stuff to encourage it and a little bit of about what he does for his wife.
I was surprised.

(botox is actually really interesting too because there are some very rare cases where people become resistant. and the woman being injected was horrified at the thought that it might happen to her. but if you think about it.... that means your body is actually resistant to a horrible toxin. which would normally be desired, lol.)

I guess I can really see the appeal. If you can go from a "4 to a 9" with just one surgery, you can kind of think about it like investing in make up and clothes. If you are put into a mindset where you ought to utilize all of your resources, not getting plastic surgery when you are able to means that you have knowingly handicapped yourself. Because beauty is certainly a resource as it is documented that physical appearances do make a difference in social status, treatment, etc.
It's like Korea...

Until you think about the addiction part. If it's so easy to fix one thing, what's to stop you from doing your whole face?

But that's still a pretty weak counter-argument against plastic surgery. More like a slippery-slope fallacy. 


It reminds me of the series Uglies.

There are some REALLY fascinating concepts behind a lot of reconstructive surgery though. Z-lines to rearrange a scar line to make the tension pull in a different area, for example. Or doing a double z-line in three different tissue layers. Whoa. Whoever made up these techniques are geniuses.

Also, it is really great to be a complete noob and allowed to ask whatever questions without being afraid of looking stupid. Preceptor was asking the resident about certain techniques and he was like... yeah I get it..... and then I was just asking ignorant questions left and right. But when the preceptor demonstrated the technique with paper models, the resident was like whoa, I get it now. haha


....I kinda wonder if all plastic surgeons have to be at least fairly attractive.... all the ones I've seen so far are indeed quite attractive. Coincidence?

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on an unrelated note, got an asymmetrical hair cut and now my mother is concerned about it being documented because it "looks like the hair cutter messed up". haha