Overview
Plastic surgeons change and save lives by utilising their skill in reconstructive surgery. As a plastic surgeon, your skills will be required in many areas, ranging from skin cancer to head and neck cancer and the excision and reconstruction of both. You may choose to specialise in a number of areas, including hand surgery, breast reconstruction surgery, post-bariatric reconstruction and burn surgery.
Paediatric plastic surgeons specialise in many areas, ranging from cleft lip/palate to ear reconstruction and congenital hand anomalies.
With new developments in hand and face transplants, plastic surgery remains at the forefront of surgical innovation. Equally, plastic surgeons pride themselves in their role as innovators at the interface between multiple surgical specialities as personified by Dr Joseph Murray, a plastic surgeon who was the first surgeon to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
The specialty has developed the Plastic Surgery National Teaching Programme which focuses on delivering key topics from the Intercollegiate Surgical Curriculum Programme (ISCP). Specialist trainees often complete fellowships in the latter years of training in locations such as Toronto, Miami, Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne and Taiwan.