Undergraduate Plastic Surgery Education: Problems,Challenges, and Proposals

Author(s):

John B. Mulliken, MD

Plastic surgery is a dynamic, sophisticated, constantly expanding, and evolving medical specialty that defies definition, not restricted by anatomical boundaries or patient age group, and based on principles rather than limited procedures, with surgical interventions ranging from complex microsurgeryâÂ?Â?based reconstructions to aesthetic procedures. However, medical students’ perceptions of the field of plastic surgery are limited and underestimate the versatility of services offered by plastic surgeons. In fact, medical students have been unable to choose plastic surgeons as experts in fundamental surgical scenarios to plastic surgery as a specialty, and plastic surgeons have been primarily recognized as esthetic surgeons.