Saturday, March 03, 2007

Certain cities known for specific Plastic Surgery


This weekend is time of year for the Dallas Rhinoplasty Symposium, one of the bigger meetings in the Plastic Surgery calendar. Dallas has been one of the more influential cities for many years in Plastic Surgery due to some of the contributions of local Plastic Surgeons and it's become one of those places we (surgeons)immediately associate in our heads with nasal surgery. The work, teachings, and prolific writings from Dallas doctors Jack Gunter, Rod Rohrich, and others has really defined what rhinoplasty surgery is in 2007.

Besides Dallas with noses, there are a few other American cities that have such strong association with certain procedures which have to do with historical contributions to Plastic Surgery.

Manhattan - the spiritual home of the facelift and decades of influential craniofacial surgeons like Marquis Converse (former head of NYU Plastic Surgery division)

Atlanta - where breast surgery will always be synonymous due to the developments in breast reconstruction techniques (TRAM flaps, latissimus flaps) and the teachings and textbooks of the late John Bostwick MD (former chief of Plastic Surgery at Emory University)

Louisville (KY) - the Kleinert Clinic is the world's largest hand and microsurgery practice and has trained hundreds of American and international surgeons. Dr. Harold Kleinert, was a pioneer in the field and developed a super-tertiary group practice around his expertise that attracts patients from all over the world. When you think of hand surgery, you think of Louisville. Which is ironic as I trained there at the University and over at the Kleinert Institute and I don't do any hand or microsurgery to speak of - Rob

There are a lot of famous surgeons scattered in locations across the US, but I don't think any of those cities have such singular connotations with specific procedures. Please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Springfield, IL/SIU and fingertips. Zook is the master.

Dr. Rob Oliver Jr. said...

Dr. Zook is certainly the "Nailbed King", but it's a little bit different then the type of associations I was highlighting.

A couple of places like LA, Miami, & Houston are known for high rates of cosmetic plastic surgery, but don't really have that "signature" procedure as closely associated with it. (BTW, Houston was the birthplace of the silicone gel implant)