Do Plastic Surgeons do Dermatology?
Dermatology is concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of skin disorders. Plastic Surgery is a specialty concerned with disorders of many parts of the body, including skin. Plastic surgeons have extensive training in surgery of many tissues; skin, fat, muscle, tendons, nerves and bones, and more, and are therefore ideally suited to treat the skin, and more, while dermatologists have comparatively minimal training in surgery. To have a surgical procedure have the best outcome, having a physician with the highest level of training perform the procedure is ideal. Oftentimes, the correct treatment of a skin lesion involves rearrangement of the surrounding skin, and modification of the underlying tissues to have an optimum result. Plastic Surgery has an emphasis on COSMESIS to achieve the best looking result, and this is not an emphasis in Dermatology. Plastic Surgeons, by virtue of their extensive surgical training, are also well equipped to deal with ANY situation in skin surgery, whereas Dermatologists have a much more limited scope of training, limited to just the skin.
