By Mike Stokes
As the clock struck midnight to begin the year 2000, much of the world breathed a collective sigh of relief when the calendar turned over four digits as planned without the dreaded Y2K bug wreaking global turmoil on the planet’s computer systems. Nowhere amid the celebratory popping corks, swirling confetti and choruses of “Auld Lang Syne,” however, did anyone imagine just how drastically the political, economic and medical landscapes would change during the tumultuous first 10 years of the new millennium - and plastic surgery was impacted by every shift. Economics, globalism, technology and war each impacted the specialty greatly over the past decade.
Fueled by media coverage and the affordability of new minimally invasive procedures, the specialty experienced unprecedented growth in the number of cosmetic procedures performed as plastic surgery suddenly became both accessible and acceptable to the average American. The cosmetic boom would eventually be offset by an economic bust, however, as the decade came to close with an economic downturn that sparked a renewed interest among many plastic surgeons in returning to the basics of reconstruction and maintaining greater diversity in their practices.
The decade also marked the beginning of a new era of unimaginable advances in reconstructive surgery. Plastic surgery has historically responded in times of war with great innovation, and the specialty has continued this legacy in concert with the ongoing military actions throughout much of the past decade. Horrific craniofacial and extremity wounds sustained by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan - many injuries that would have been fatal if not for life-saving advances in body armor and front-line evacuation techniques - have forced plastic surgeons to push the envelope of medical possibility, with promising breakthroughs in stem cell research, composite tissue allotransplantation, robotics and prosthetics expanding the specialty’s reach throughout surgery.
Not all of the specialty’s advances of the past decade, however, were limited to the O.R., as an increasingly web-savvy public turned to the Internet to research procedures and surgeons prior to their first consultation. Rapid expansion of online social media further redefined how plastic surgery practices could be marketed in the 21st century. ASPS also underwent significant changes in how it used technology to provide education to the public and members, streamline operations and advocate for the specialty by leveraging web technology to provide information on silicone breast implants, cosmetic surgery taxes and patient safety issues. The past decade also saw the implementation of a new governance structure to streamline operations and vastly increase funding available through the Foundation for clinically relevant research that will undoubtedly continue to shape the specialty for decades to come.
There’s no question that the past decade has been a pivotal one for plastic surgery on many fronts. To compile the following Top 10 list of the specialty’s biggest stories from 2000 through 2009, members of the PSN editorial team of the past decade were assembled to look back at a decade’s worth of news stories and rank them based on a combination of impact on the specialty, resonance with the public and media - and how they helped define the decade of plastic surgery.
No. 1
Face transplantation becomes a reality
No. 2
Silicone implants return
No. 3
Plastic surgery and ‘reality’ TV
No. 4
Botox launches minimally invasive trend
No. 5
The next generation of soft-tissue fillers arrives
No. 6
High-profile deaths raise patient-safety awareness
No. 7
Plastic surgery goes to Washington
No. 8
Post-bariatric boom
No. 9
Increase in office-based surgery
No. 10
Medical tourism
Originally published in the January/February 2010 issue of Plastic Surgery News
Continue to follow this blog and details of each of these fascinating stories will be added!