Special Physical Diagnosis Session - 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.