I am in my first year of college and I am interested in becoming a plastic surgeon and want to go to med school, however, I am not comfortable with doing actual surgery. I am more interested in doing stuff like temporary nose jobs, lip augmentations, botox, and things of that sort. Do doctors who went to med school to become a plastic surgeon do this or is it a nurse who specialized in this? If it is a certain type of nurse that does this then should I change my major to nursing? Or if it still is a plastic/cosmetic surgeon that does this, then how much more schooling would I have to do in med school and how could I specialize in only doing non-surgical procedures while still making a decent amount of money?
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You will have to do surgery during residency for Plastics, even if once you set up practice, you limit your procedures.
And, during your 2 years of clinical rotations in med school, you won’t be able to avoid surgery.
"I am more interested in doing stuff like temporary nose jobs, lip augmentations, botox, and things of that sort. "
then you want to become a dermatologist, not a plastic surgeon
Moving thread
You will get used to the surgery when you become a plastic surgeon. If you don’t want surgery at all, you can’t be a doctor, as every doctor regardless of specialty will go thru surgery in med school.
All med students do a minimum of 6 weeks to 12 weeks of clinical surgical training in med school. Other clinical rotations will see med students doing hands-on invasive procedures on patients (intubations, spinal taps, venous & arterial blood draws, catheterizations, suturing, etc) and mandatory OB/GYN rotations always include gynecological surgery and vaginal deliveries/baby catching (which is quite bloody & messy).
Plastic surgery requires 5 years of general surgery training (where you will assisting or performing surgery daily) followed by a plastic surgery fellowship that lasts 3 years (where you will assisting or performing surgery daily). OR it requires a integrated plastic surgery residency that last 6 years and is 3 years of general surgery followed by 3 years of specialized plastics training.
Plastic surgery is one of the most competitive residencies around and you will need to be a top student with exceptional test scores/grades and excellent LORs from your surgery preceptors to match into it.
If you want to do “temporary nose jobs, lip augmentations, botox” you could look into dermatology, but…you still have to get through the surgery rotation in med school. And dermatology is every bit as competitive as plastic surgery to match into. Dermatology also has a surgical training component for skin cancer/removal of other skin growths.
Nurses cannot do the types of procedures you mention. But NP or PA may be able to.
NP requires a DNP (BS nursing plus several years nursing experience followed by a doctoral program); PA is a master’s level degree similar to the first 2 years of med school and followed by 18 months of intense clinical training–that includes—yes!—a surgical rotation.