[State of the art in plastic and reconstructive surgery: a growing art]

On studying the state of the art in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery there are two different aspects that have achieved very different levels of advance and progress: the organisation and establishment of this speciality, and scientific and technical progress. In an analysis of the former. The author outlines the principal problems facing Plastic Surgery in Portugal, the present shortcomings and the almost complete lack of coherent planning, and the prevailing rules for the training of new specialists. A study of the second aspect reveals manifest progress and innovation in many areas of this speciality. The Author describes in greater detail, controlled tissue growth, innovations with flaps, principally facial-cutaneous and inverted flow, advances in the remodelling of the face where there are many examples of implantation of material, modelling osteotomy and surgical interventions in the field of muscular dynamics, and lipo-aspiration which has extended horizons in both Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.