[French plastic surgeons: update in 2007]

French medical demography is a true public health issue. The medicine doctor's scarcity announced by many will not appear for the plastic surgeons. In this speciality, problems are an excess staff and irregular sharing out. The aim of the study was to make a very sharp update of the speciality thanks to an actual demographic descriptive and analytic study compared with the one realised in 1998 including a French plastic surgeon's activity study. In 2007, there were 889 plastic surgeons in France, so 235 surgeons more than in 1998 and an average of 26 new plastic surgeons a year. The plastic surgeon's density was 1 for 71,174 people, much more important than the recommended value. The distribution of these surgeons is still unequal and the excess staff is getting worse. The plastic surgeon's activity study based on the Information System Medicalisation Program (ISMP) between 2004 and 2006, including 13 classic plastic surgery's procedures, showed an important decrease of the activity especially for the private sector. The analytic study put together the data concerning the demography and the activity considering the economic side of esthetic surgery. Thanks to these data, plastic surgeons will now be able to choose their working area not only based on geographic reasons but also depending on the activity they want and on the importance of the competition. This work stands for a help for plastic surgeons, in the hope of a fair sharing out of these practioners.