subject: The Art and Craft of Facial Plastic Surgery [print this page] The Art and Craft of Facial Plastic Surgery
The Art and Craft of Facial Rejuvenation Surgery, by Dr. Wayne Larrabee, will be published this year in English and in Chinese. In this atlas Dr. Larrabee demonstrates the techniques he has developed and refined over the years to rejuvenate the aging face. The knowledge of safe and effective techniques is essential, but a facial plastic surgeon must also possess additional qualities and experiences to excel.
The facial plastic surgeon must really see the patient's face in four dimensions. A deep and almost intuitive knowledge of the three dimensional anatomy is combined with experience to understand the effects of time, the fourth dimension, on the appearance of the face. Imaging studies and measurements can help the surgeon but only a developed aesthetic sense can enable him or her to visualize not just the patient's deficiencies but the effects of various surgical maneuvers to correct them. This aesthetic ability can be taught to some degree by studying facial measurements, and exposure to visual arts can further expand the surgeon's sensitivity to aesthetic forms. After teaching many young surgeons, however, Dr. Larrabee believes that a strong aesthetic sense is almost inborn in the best surgeons.
Technical skills and the craft of surgery are critically important to achieve the best outcome. Most surgeons who have completed residency training and are surgically competent in the areas they have studied. Board Certification in a specialty with a focus on the face is an essential but not sufficient qualification. Studies of outcome quality essentially always come to the same conclusion: those surgeons who have the most experience and perform the most procedures achieve the best results. Genius in many areas such as music, golf or poetry has been found to be the result of long and intense practice, more than any rare inherent ability. Put simply extensive experience in a specific surgical procedure is the best determinate of the outcome.
In addition to being a talented technical surgeon with a good artistic sense, a facial plastic surgeon must be an ethical and professional physician. This allows him or her to treat the entire person and not just the eyelids or nose. Most obviously one must consider pre-existing medical conditions to perform aesthetic surgery safely. It is also important to understand some patients seeking aesthetic surgery have underlying emotional needs which interfere with their abilities to make a good decision for themselves about this surgery. The facial plastic surgeon must recognize these and help the patient make the best decisions. An excellent facial plastic surgeon must master the art and craft of facial plastic surgery and be an ethical, professional physician but there is more he or she should have a passion for perfection. Rhinoplasty for example, is a procedure in which millimeter adjustments must be combined with knowledge of the changes with healing. Perfection may not be possible, but without a passion for perfection the surgeon will never achieve consistently excellent results. Each patient represents a new opportunity to visualize an optimal result, and then focus and work intently to achieve that outcome.
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