Plastic surgery covers all aspects of wound healing and reconstruction after congenital, acquired and traumatic problems. It interfaces with many other disciplines.

Plastic and reconstructive surgery is a branch of surgery that has its origins as far back as Ancient Egypt with wound care depicted in hieroglyphs on papyrus and descriptions of flap reconstructions of nose and ear in the Sushruta-Sanhita 2000 years ago in India. These techniques were passed on through the generations and came to be known as ‘Indian Plastic Surgery’ as recently as the late nineteenth century.

The Second World War heralded the modern era of plastic surgery, as new surgical techniques were applied to war injuries. Concomitant advances in anaesthesia and infection control allowed reconstruction where previously only non-operative measures were possible, which had resulted in unsightly scarring or loss of function.

The development in the 1950’s of the operating microscope opened the door to reconstructive micro-vascular surgery and free tissue transfer, enabling even more accurate and complex reconstructions.

Modern plastic and reconstructive surgery is the combination of various surgical skills and techniques to attempt to restore normal, functional anatomy from the abnormal, whether the abnormality is congenital, traumatic or as a result of a disease process such as cancer or infection.  In practical terms the plastic surgeon’s task is often to modify a wound in order that it may heal or in some cases to create a surgical wound to regain form or function.