The Meaning of "Doing Everything".

Evaluating a high-risk patient for a high-risk operation is complicated. Discussing the benefits and burdens with your patient is only a part of the process. Should the decision be not to operate, explaining and planning the nonoperative path forward with all of its inherent challenges is crucial.

Plastic surgery and global health: how plastic surgery impacts the global burden of surgical disease.

The global burden of surgical disease is estimated as being 11% of the total global burden of disease. In this article we discuss the portion of this burden which could be ameliorated with plastic surgical expertise. Although not necessarily seen as a major player in issues related to global health, plastic surgeons are uniquely qualified to decrease the burden of surgical disease afflicting people in the developing world.

Abdominal lipectomy: a prospective outcomes study.

Context/objective: Abdominal lipectomy is performed by plastic surgeons to provide symptomatic, functional, and cosmetic relief for patients with excess abdominal tissue. However, there are few clinical outcome studies looking at the utility of this procedure: this is the first prospective oucomes study.

Design: Patients who underwent abdominal lipectomy at the Bellflower Medical Center during a 12-month period (September 2004 through September 2005) were prospectively studied.