[Humanitarian aesthetic surgery].
Must a face be disfigured by a terrible tropical disease, in order to make us realise that the well being of our gesture is aesthetically acceptable? Must our reparative motivation remain the only trace of our skill and our humanity? During a plastic surgery mission, so-called humanitarian mission, can this surgery be aesthetic? Can aesthetic surgery be humanitarian? We learnt from aesthetic surgery on humanitarian missions, that aesthetic is only a technic to assist the reparation aspect. There is no need to justify aesthetic by reconstruction, because aesthetic belongs, in its entirety, to reparation. There is no need either to feel guilty, when our technical gesture is aesthetic, since what really motivates our intervention is not for us to decide. Is the reparation of the cleft lip of a little Asian girl, a reparation gesture or only an aesthetic approach? You may think that this will be a reparation gesture, because it will be more "popular" or because you will reconstruct the muscular belt. This child will most probably look for a more beautiful or aesthetic lip (in any case, she ignores the intricacies of facial growth principles). Therefore, it will be an aesthetic intervention. Never mind the motivation, since your technic will be the same, and you will try to do your very best and the most aesthetically you can. Only the very intention behind an intervention will decide whether it is an aesthetic or a plastic intervention, whereas your technical gesture will remain the same. All this illustrates that our definitions are of a minor importance, compared with the mere satisfaction of our little Asian girl, which, hopefully, will be a "beautiful" satisfaction. In fact, we have learnt not to do aesthetic surgery, but to give an aesthetic approach to our surgery, even during our humanitarian missions. The form aesthetic surgery will take is very subjective and only the final result will have the last say. Hopefully this surgical result will be aesthetically and humanly acceptable.
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D000533:Altruism; D002648:Child; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009042:Motivation; D010819:Physician's Role; D019651:Plastic Surgery Procedures; D013518:Surgery, Plastic