Plastic surgeons and cosmetic surgeons are not the same. Plastic surgeons are far better trained and have the ability to navigate difficult problems or situations that can arise during any surgical procedure. It is a myth propagated by cosmetic surgeons that they are equally or more qualified than plastic surgeons to perform what we call plastic surgery or what they call cosmetic surgery. The origin of plastic surgery comes from the Greek word PLASTOS which means to reshape or mold. And this is what the plastic surgeon does, whether the procedure is for aesthetic reasons or for reconstructive purposes.

The whole premise of a cosmetic surgery degree is ridiculous. The idea of saying you have been involved in 300 procedures some of which can be purely observational as the foundation for your training or expertise sounds pretty lame. And as your Venn diagram shows, yes aesthetic procedures may be only 1/6 of training a plastic surgeon is receiving, but that also means that this same surgeon is 6 times better trained.

And maybe you should also note that every time we do a breast reconstruction, the patient is having a tummy tuck at the same time. Every time we do fat grafting, the patient is having liposuction. And very facial fracture that is repaired requires the same exposure as doing an entire Blepharoplasty plus more, and every burn we treat requires knowledge about wound healing and scarring and post operative scar management and every keloid that we treat requires the knowledge of how to treat these difficult problems. And every breast reduction is a larger version of a breast lift and some breast lifts are just small breast reductions.

The bottom line is that plastic surgeons are the better trained surgeons and the more qualified to do this surgery. If you need a cosmetic surgeon there are plenty of them abroad in the Dominican Republic and elsewhere . You may have read about some of the disastrous results in the news.