Career Advice on How to Become A Plastic Surgeon Plastic surgeons do a variety of work to reshape and alter the way people look.  Sometimes this involves cosmetic surgery, such as giving a woman with a small frame enormously overshaped breasts, or it can involve reconstructive surgery, due to an accident or a fire.  In short, America and the world’s obsession with elective cosmetic surgery have given the plastic surgeon something of a bad reputation.

Career Facts:

Many plastic surgeons are doing very valuable work that changes the lives of men, women and even children for the better.  Thousands of serious and needed reconstructive surgeries are performed every year, often with live altering results.  So if you have been career planning and considering becoming a plastic surgeon, we realize that it could actually be for a very noble reason.

There were a whopping eleven million elective cosmetic surgeries performed in the United States just in 2006.  Obviously, all these buttock lifts and breast augmentations had to be done by someone.  Eleven million surgeries mean a whole lot of money for plastic surgeons.

Career Opportunities and Job Outlook-Good:

The rate of growth for surgeons is expected to be about fourteen percent between now and 2016.  However, it is only logical to conclude that with so much demand for plastic surgery, the job growth in the field could exceed this anticipated fourteen percent.  If you train to be a plastic surgeon now, there is a very high chance that when you finish school, your job search will be easy and profitable.

A Day in The Life:

Plastic Surgeons are required to perform a wide variety of operations. However, many plastic surgeons specialize in one or two operations.  Most days will center on performing operations and evaluating patients that they have already operated on.  Oh yes and then you can go out on the town and spend the copious amounts of money that you are making.

Average Salary:

The average salary of a general surgeon is about $228,000. However, plastic surgeons can often make much more.

$228k

Career Training and Qualifications:

Plastic surgeons hold medical degrees (or at least one hopes they do)