Cosmetic and plastic surgery are very closely related specialties, which makes one erroneously interchange the terms. However, technically speaking, they are different. A large number of plastic surgeons focus their practice on cosmetic surgery, and this has led to the confusion in the minds of millions of people.

However, both cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery are involved in improving the body and facial appearances. But both specialties have different principles, training, goals, and outcomes for patients.

Here’s a brief snippet on the differences between cosmetic and plastic surgery:

Cosmetic Surgery
It’s also called aesthetic surgery and its procedures, techniques, and principles are focused on improving or enhancing a person’s appearance. It’s a procedure aimed to enhance an individual’s self-esteem, and constitute elective procedures. The surgery is performed to improve the aesthetic appeal and achieve body proportion. These surgeries are generally performed by plastic surgeons, and the patients are healthy without any underlying health issues.

Plastic Surgery
It’s a surgical specialty that focuses on repairing the defects of the body and face to promote normal functioning and appearance. These issues can be birth defects, trauma, burns, disorders, and specific diseases that affect the appearance and functioning of body parts. In other words, plastic surgery corrects dysfunctional parts of the body, and is called reconstructive surgery.

The differences between cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery is further described as follows:

Examples of Cosmetic Surgery Procedures

• Body contouring that includes tummy tuck, liposuction, and Gynecomastia treatment
• Breast enhancement comprising of breast reduction, breast augmentation, and breast lift
• Facial countering that comprise rhinoplasty and chin or cheek enhancement
• Facial rejuvenation featuring procedures like brow lift, facelift, eyelid lift, and neck lift
• Skin rejuvenation that includes laser resurfacing, filler treatments, and Botox injections

Examples of Plastic Surgery Procedures

• Breast reconstruction involving mastectomy, enhancement and reduction
• Repairing burns
• Hand surgery
• Reconstructing the lower extremities
• Scar revision surgery
• Repairing congenital defects life cleft palate reconstruction and repairing extremity defects

Another very important difference between cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery is the type of training obtained. In plastic surgery, there are six categories a practitioner needs training in, and one of them is cosmetic surgery. The other categories of plastic surgery are

• Hand surgery
• Reconstructive surgery
• Trauma surgery
• Disorders
• Congenital defect repair

This means to say that only one out of six required training categories in plastic surgery are related to cosmetic surgery.

In cosmetic surgery, all the required training categories are exclusively dedicated to cosmetic surgery that is a group of surgeries being a part of plastic surgery.

Other Differences
The differences between cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery include the following, and further enhance the knowledge about both the fields:

• Cosmetic surgery can be performed by plastic surgeons and specialists from other medical fields
• Getting a cosmetic surgery done is the voluntary choice of an individual, unlike plastic surgery that is mandatory to correct a dysfunctional body part
• Any area of the bidy can ungergo cosmetic surgery
• Plastic surgery is a specialized field only performed by a certified plastic surgeon, and not by cosmetic surgeons