Special Physical Diagnosis Session - Plastic Surgery
From Iusmicm
Plastic surgery
- Priorities in plastic surgery are: survival, function, pain, appearance, and efficiency.
- Often a single surgery is desired to achieve all these priorities so that the pt has time to heal and live before their disease kills them anyway.
- Reconstruction is all about blood supply, thus it matters if the pt had surgery in the past as that may have changed their blood supply.
- The difference between a "flap" and a "graft" is that a flap has its own blood supply.
- The "pedicle" is the blood supply for a flap.
- "Composite harvesting" takes multiple types of tissue from a single harvest (i.e. a flap that includes skin, muscle)
- A microscope is used to reconnect vasculature in a new location in a process called "microvascular free tissue reconstruction".
- Radiation is an important part of the history to obtain for surgery patients because radiated arteries and veins are susceptible to rupture.