Aesthetic plastic surgery training at the Jalisco Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Institute: a 20-year review.

[BACKGROUND] Teaching aesthetic surgery within the different training programs worldwide sometimes presents significant challenges. The main difficulty lies in providing resident physicians with sufficient exposure to all of the conditions that they will likely encounter once their training ends. In many places, exposure to a totally comprehensive array of operations is almost nonexistent.

[METHODS] To analyze the work that residents perform in aesthetic surgery at the Instituto Jalisciense de Cirugía Reconstructiva "José Guerrerosantos" (Jalisco Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Institute), a hospital affiliated with the University of Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico, the surgical records of 30 residents who finished their plastic surgery training between 1990 and 2009 were chosen at random and reviewed retrospectively. Only surgical procedures performed in operating rooms, in which residents acted as the primary surgeon or first assistant, were analyzed.

[RESULTS] Each resident performed an average of 309 aesthetic surgical procedures: 167 as surgeon and 142 as first assistant. The surgical procedures were divided into three general categories: body contouring procedures, breast procedures, and facial procedures. The numbers of procedures performed by residents as surgeons or first assistants according to each category were 55 and 37 (body contouring), 34 and 31 (breast), and 78 and 74 (facial).

[CONCLUSIONS] The experience is gratifying. At the Jalisco Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Institute, all residents have an opportunity to perform a comparable number of aesthetic procedures of the most varied nature and complexity under the supervision of experienced plastic surgeons. It is therefore possible to teach aesthetic surgery to residents.