The name ‘Plastic Surgery’ unfortunately does not convey the scope of the speciality like many other names do. We do not treat any particular age group like the paediatrician or the geriatrician, we do not treat any particular sex like the gynaecologist or the andrologist, we do not treat any particular body system like the urologist and the neurologist and we do not treat any particular disease like the oncologist or the diabetologist, but we treat almost all of these and much more! The name Plastic Surgery has perhaps not done justice to our vast scope.
A serious thought should be given to changing the name of our speciality from Plastic Surgery to Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery. The fact that the British Journal of Plastic Surgery is now called Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery is no coincidence. The change of name must have been with a purpose and the obvious purpose was to reflect the complete scope of our speciality. And by doing so we will take a big step towards discouraging armature adventurism in our speciality by half cooked, half baked cosmetologists.