The surgery sched­uled for today was a facial reju­ve­na­tion. As opposed to Day 1, in which I learned about the physician-patient aspect of plas­tic surgery, today I observed the mechan­ics of a plas­tic surgery itself. I learned about the job of the surgeon’s assis­tant and of the anes­the­si­ol­o­gist, Dr. Lee. Of course, I had to stand a foot back from the patient and be sure not to touch any of the ster­ile equip­ment. Nev­er­the­less, I was able to get a clear view of what Dr. Ganchi was doing through­out by stand­ing at strate­gic loca­tions. Watch­ing the surgery was quite an eye-opening expe­ri­ence. The skin was lifted, and the organic mass beneath it revealed. This, I must say, was the high­light of the day and a most mem­o­rable sight – the grotesque blood ves­sels, con­nec­tive tis­sue, and lipocytes lying a mere skin layer below the facial façade that defines us. On one hand, the itin­er­ary for the pro­ce­dure seems log­i­cal and straight­for­ward: open, fix, close. On the other hand, plas­tic surgery of the face requires such extreme dex­ter­ity of the hands, patience of the mind, and keen­ness of the eye. We are so sen­si­tive to asym­me­try between the right and left sides of the face that oper­a­tions to reshape the face seem to me an extremely daunt­ing task. The body was made to recover, said Dr. Ganchi. It seemed amaz­ing to me, a tes­ta­ment to our mirac­u­lous biol­ogy, that we can heal after being cut open and sewn closed like so.
 
Com­ing to Dr. Ganchi’s office was an invalu­able expe­ri­ence – Day 1 of see­ing patients and Day 2 of observ­ing surgery com­ple­ment nicely to show dif­fer­ent aspects of plas­tic surgery in a pri­vate prac­tice set­ting. I learned much about the psy­chol­ogy, phi­los­o­phy, obsta­cles and ethics of plas­tic surgery. I came in with the idea that patients, empow­ered by their plas­tic sur­geons, have an “artis­tic license” to nip and tuck how­ever they want. But I learned that there are fixed pro­ce­dures, defined ways to make the human physique more aes­thet­i­cally pleas­ing. A respon­si­ble sur­geon, an expe­ri­enced sur­geon, will guide a patient to achiev­ing a nat­ural beauty, rather than fol­low his or her every desire.

Dr. Ganchi and Tracie

 
These two days were not only a great learn­ing expe­ri­ence, but also very enjoy­able. Every patient had a dif­fer­ent story, so every minute brought some­thing new; this reaf­firmed my moti­va­tion in choos­ing med­i­cine. Dr. Ganchi is not only a skilled sur­geon, but also an exem­plar of how a doc­tor should inter­act with patients, and a great men­tor to talk to. He and his staff were very nice to accom­mo­date a col­lege stu­dent and very recep­tive to answer all my ques­tions. Thank you to the office and to Career Ser­vices for mak­ing this pos­si­ble! I enthu­si­as­ti­cally rec­om­mend this Princetern­ship to those with an inter­est in cos­metic plas­tic surgery.