Cosmetic Surgery: Is It Science or Art?

Abstract

It is not uncommon, these days, to refer to cosmetic surgeons as half artists. The doctors are not averse to being called so; in fact, they are eager to exploit this trend. Cosmetic surgery, uniquely, strives to achieve the transformation of the body on the grounds of curing not a disease but a mind seeking youth and beauty. Cosmetic surgery can be defined as a great effort to create artistic value, in the sense that it strives to seek beauty or youth by rebuilding qualities no longer visible using medical intervention, based on scientific concepts such as causality. Or is it the very combination of artistic sensibilities and the medical treatment of patients? Recently, the editor of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (PRS) published an article [1] asking what type the reader was, the Michelangelo type or the Leonardo da Vinci type. The article juxtaposed the acquisition of knowledge and the performance of medical interventions through the role of the medical professional with the creative qualities of a Renaissance artist. The doctors who authored the article then posed a question: When surgeons are engaged in cosmetic procedures, do they create of beauty stemming from internal inspiration? Do they aspire to create avant garde forms for the sake of artistic value? When incising the eyelid and augmenting the nose, do they determine the degree and proportion based on their subjective, free-floating, poetic inspiration? Or are their judgements fundamentally determined by medical knowledge accumulated over years of medical training and practical knowledge based on the self-reinforcing process of trial and error?