Is It Prudent Not to Learn from Our Living Legends?

Abstract

The knowledge of plastic surgery is growing by leaps and bounds with every passing day. We have come a long way from Sushruta to Gillies to the current generation of plastic surgeons. It cannot be emphasized better by anything than by Isaac Newton’s quote of 1675 (where he states that “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”) that where we are today is because of the works of our predecessors. The author has observed that the Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery honors such giants in the “Icon of the issue section” where either a student or a close relative of the masters who are no longer with us narrates his/her life, principles, and contributions to plastic surgery. Besides this the Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery also publishes obituaries of prominent contributors to the field. In author’s opinion, since these are biographies written by someone else, there are bound to be some aspects which cannot be clearly brought out as the person about whom it is written is no longer with us. There is also a definite possibility that the analysis and perspective of the biographer and that of about whom it is written could have been entirely different!