JOB OVERVIEW Plastic surgeons are licensed medical doctors or practitioners who deal with replacing body parts, repairing them, or reconstructing damaged ones on various areas of the body. The parts of the body that will be under construction or reconstruction are usually the damaged parts through accidents, or parts that are in need of modification due to inborn deformities or as a result of another medical procedure. Today, plastic surgeons are often dealing with clients who are in need of modifications of facial features. However, this is not limited to such, and can also be other parts of the body, such as the torso or the hand, buttocks and many others as desired by the pastic surgeon clients or patients.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING REQUIREMENTS
Plastic surgeons are types of physicians. Therefore a premadical course has to be finished first. Then an entrance to the Medicine course exam has to be passed with a satisfactory or above rating. Then, he must complete medical school degree for four or five years including the clerkship and internship and then take the licensure examination and pass, to become a licensed general practitioner. They should also undergo the different in patient case trainings specifically on plastic surgery specialty within their residency period. Residency period for plastic surgeons tend to be longer than those of the less specialized medical doctors. Usually, a specialty and a subspecialty in surgery lasts for five to seven years instead of three to seven, normally with an additional year of residency for any other subspecialties desired.
SKILLS AND ABILITIES
A plastic surgeon is indeed a lover of aesthetics. He/She should be very datailed in doing his work to the visual and functional level of intervention. He should take note of improving the looks of the parts to be done or repaired after a reconstruction and make sure that the part of the body also retains its function at its best. He should be skilled with the use of the surgical tools such as the different knives, cutting tools, dermatome, sutures, forceps and clamps. He/she should coordinate with the anesthesiologist or team on duty within the course of the operation so that the body will remain stable overall within the procedures.
DUTIES
Plastic surgeons must master and become an expert on a multitude of procedures.
This ranges from relatively simple or cosmetic procedures, such as chemical peels to remove discolorations and scars, rhinoplasty and collagen injections, to a more complicated and serious procedures such as bone reinstallation, sexual change or reassignment surgery and contracture surgery to name a few.
SALARY AND JOB OUTLOOK
Plastic surgery can be a lucrative specialty in Medicine. This is why an extra training is required to become a plastic surgeon and that the salaries are also high. Plastic surgeons tend to deal mainly with either cosmetic surgery alone or reconstructive surgery alone, although some surgeons are trained to perform both.
Plastic surgeons can command a high annual salariy rate. The range of salary for plastic surgeons is from $300,000 to $791,510 annually. This estimation is according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Also, job prospects for all surgeons are expected to grow 14% in the years from 2006-2016 since people noowadays are becoming mroe conscious of how they look and how they can possbly improve on their innate characteristics,as well as prevent aging.
Paula Hiz is a researcher and a human resource specialist who helps newly graduates, job applicants and post graduate professionals be aware of the opportunities and trainings for skills and practice upgrading.