Plastic surgery
medical specialty concerned with the altering or restoration of form and function
Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving restoration, reconstruction, or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery covers a wide range of specialties, including craniofacial surgery, oral and maxillofacial surgery, hand surgery, microsurgery, and the treatment of burns. This kind of surgery focuses on restoring a body part or improving its function. In contrast, cosmetic surgery (or aesthetic surgery) focuses solely on improving the physical appearance of the body.
A comprehensive definition of plastic surgery has never been established, because it has no distinct anatomical object and thus overlaps with practically all other surgical specialties. An essential feature of plastic surgery is that it involves the treatment of conditions that require or may require tissue relocation skills.
Etymology
The word plastic in plastic surgery refers to the concept of "reshaping" and comes from the Greek πλαστική (τέχνη), plastikē (tekhnē), "the art of modelling" of malleable flesh. This meaning in English is seen as early as 1598. In the surgical context, the word "plastic" first appeared in 1816 and was established in 1838 by Eduard Zeis, preceding the modern technical usage of the word for the synthetic polymer material by 70 years.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q182442. The Library of Congress control number is sh85130786. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1598, 1816 and 1838.
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This entry incorporates text from “Plastic surgery” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.