Cosmetic Surgery

Hi, I am Dr. Lalit Choudhury Vice Chairman Department of Plastic & Cosmetic Surgery in Gangaram Hospital.

I would like to share a few related issues like we have all the range of patients starting from cosmetic surgery to the reconstructive surgery to the trauma. Most important of my branch is if the patient has an unrealistic expectation that creates an issue of even the best result they are not satisfied. Mainly for the cosmetic but it is true for other reconstructive or plastic work. It is important to convince the patient & tell everything plus as well as the minus related to the surgery. And then they have a realistic expectation like if they come with the photograph of somebody & want their face or nose to be same they must be told that it's not going to be the same as you said.

You can create a building with the raw materials which is provided to you. So you can have a modification of your own not similar to somebody else. This is important otherwise they have psychological issues and post-op they are not satisfied. So we get trauma also and trauma there is tissue loss which we get reconstructed or a tissue loss which will never come back like amputations. So when the patient has a post-op adjustment to the social issues & occupational they must get physiotherapy & occupational therapy & other things to get them back into society.

So these few things are important. Now what commonly in cosmetic surgery which comes to us is head to toe if you count from the rhinoplasties are very common the face then you have the breast augmentation & reduction tummy tags liposuctions hair transplants also. So these are the most common plastic surgery cosmetic procedures. It is important that in cosmetic surgeries again that is not just showing the pre or post-op the patient should take a fixed image in the mind they must be told what in respective cases possible and what can go wrong like issues of smoking. A patient with smoking issues should be told like quit smoking to at least 2 weeks otherwise they will have issues flap necrosis post-op healing issues their tummy tug will not heal and limited time of 3 to 4 weeks. Same is important in diabetes and other comorbidities. So patient must have all the knowledge although they come prepared with the Google knowledge and often the google knowledge is what their perception is all different from what a doctor can do. So they must be well educated regarding this. Thank you so much.