The most difficult surgery I've performed in Nice—and it wasn't cosmetic surgery
The most difficult surgery I've performed in Nice—and it wasn't cosmetic surgery
That evening, I was getting ready to leave for the weekend.
The phone rings. It's the emergency medical service. A young woman has just gotten her arm stuck in a pasta machine at the restaurant where she works.
I rush to the scene. Once there, the decision is made—abruptly: the arm and hand must be amputated.
The patient is being transported to the university hospital. Her arm and hand are being transported with her, in a cooler.
Off to the operating room
Before us: an arm and a hand to reattach. Two residents, a team, and a 14-hour surgery about to begin.
We reconnect everything, one by one: the bones, the nerves, the arteries, and the veins.
Now that the arm is finished, it's time to start all over again. The hand is waiting for its turn.
When we leave the operating room, it’s 4 a.m. The team is exhausted. But his arm and hand are still functioning.
None of this is possible on your own
At this level of complexity, a surgeon doesn’t work alone. That day, I was fortunate to have a support system around me: the nurses, the residents, and the advice of the department head. A reimplantation of this magnitude requires an entire team working together, hour after hour, to pull it off.
What That Night Taught Me
Today, I perform cosmetic surgery. The situation is completely different now: no more life-threatening emergencies, no more ice chest, no more countdown.
But the action itself remains the same.
Precision. Attention to detail. This commitment to excellence leaves nothing to chance, whether it’s reconnecting an artery less than a millimeter wide or performing a cosmetic procedure with half-millimeter precision.
What I learned that night in the operating room, I still put into practice in every procedure, even today.
How to Choose a Plastic Surgeon
This requirement is exactly what you should look for when choosing a plastic surgeon. Beyond word of mouth or before-and-after photos, a few criteria really matter: a degree in plastic, reconstructive, and cosmetic surgery (the only one recognized for practicing this specialty—verify this in the directory of the French Medical Board), hospital experience, which fosters rigor in dealing with complications, and the practitioner’s ability to clearly explain the risks, limitations, and alternatives, rather than simply selling a result. A good cosmetic surgeon is, above all, a surgeon: the precision and attention to detail that save a limb apply, on a different scale, to every procedure performed in the operating room.
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