The scope of the series, as outlined in the editorial, is deliberately broad. It will welcome research articles examining the foundation and evolution of plastic and reconstructive surgery, including studies of the contributions of individual surgeons and patients, the historical development of surgical techniques and instrumentation, and even the field’s reflections in art and literature. That breadth reflects a central claim of the editorial: every procedure, condition, surgical algorithm and instrument in the specialty carries its own story, and those stories collectively explain how modern practice came to look the way it does.

The historical arc the editorial sketches stretches back further than most readers might expect. It opens with ancient Sanskrit texts describing Sushruta’s procedure for nasal reconstruction, a reference to one of the earliest documented operations in which tissue was deliberately transferred to repair a defect of the face. Nasal reconstruction holds a special place in the origin story of the specialty because the nose, prominently exposed and vulnerable to injury, was among the most socially and functionally devastating losses a person could suffer. Techniques for rebuilding it developed across centuries and cultures, long before the term plastic surgery existed, and the editorial treats this ancient lineage as the starting point of a continuous tradition of innovation that runs unbroken to the present day.

From that ancient beginning, the editorial traces a path to the other end of the technological spectrum: modern robot-assisted surgery. The contrast is striking, but the authors’ point is that the two are connected by more than chronology. The principles that govern reconstruction today, such as careful wound closure, respect for tissue planes and the strategic transfer of tissue from one part of the body to another, were established through accumulated experience rather than invented overnight. Knowledge of this history, the editorial argues, is an important resource for understanding and respecting the sacrifices and contributions of the surgeons and patients whose experiences defined the techniques, principles and standards that define practice today.

A central and sobering theme of the editorial is the role of war. For the most part, the modern techniques used in plastic surgery took root in field army hospitals and were first performed by military surgeons, who were tasked with wound closures of varying complexity, extremity reattachments, burn treatments and other consequences of armed conflict. The scale and complexity of injury seen in the First and Second World Wars necessitated rapid surgical innovation, producing novel techniques in wound closure, reconstruction and microsurgery. Battlefield conditions, in this telling, functioned as an brutal forcing function: mass casualties with unprecedented combinations of injuries demanded solutions that civilian practice had never been required to develop at speed.

The editorial names a remarkable roster of contributors from the first half of the twentieth century, a period when the specialty crystallized into a distinct discipline. Among those listed are Sir Harold Gillies, Sir Robert Jones, Henry Pickerill, Hippolyte Morestin, Erich Lexer, Jaques Joseph, Otto Lanz, Johannes Esser, Vladimir Petrovich Filatov, Archibald McIndoe, Luke Voyno-Yasenetsky, Vincenz Czerny and Suzanne Noël. The list spans multiple countries and national traditions, underscoring that the birth of modern plastic surgery was an international enterprise rather than the achievement of a single school. Several of these names remain familiar to surgeons today through eponymous flaps, instruments and techniques that are still taught in training programs around the world.

What distinguishes this editorial from a conventional celebration of surgical pioneers is its insistence on remembering the other half of the partnership: the patients. It is equally important, the authors write, to remember the soldiers and civilians whose injuries compelled the marvelous surgical progress from which patients continue to benefit today. Their suffering and sacrifice are often overshadowed by the focus on the surgeon or the technique, but their experiences are a reminder that the history of surgery carries a tremendous human cost that must never be forgotten. This reframing is significant for how the series is likely to approach its subject. Rather than treating historical patients as passive material upon which progress was made, the editorial positions them as contributors whose injuries, endurance and outcomes shaped the establishment and evolution of surgical practice.

The announcement also arrives at a meaningful moment for the journal itself. BMC Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery is a new open access title, and the history series appears in its first volume, as article number nine. Launching a focus series on the field’s origins in a journal’s inaugural year is a deliberate statement of editorial identity: the journal is positioning historical scholarship not as a peripheral curiosity but as a core strand of the specialty’s literature. The open access model matters here too, since making historical research freely available allows surgeons, students, historians and the public to engage with the field’s past without paywall barriers.

For working surgeons, the editorial suggests that historical knowledge has practical value beyond commemoration. Understanding why a particular flap design, fixation method or reconstructive algorithm emerged, and under what constraints it was first tested, can deepen technical judgment and clarify which elements of current practice are fundamental principles and which are contingent solutions to problems that may no longer exist in the same form. For patients, the history is a reminder that every contemporary standard of care, from burn reconstruction to microsurgical reattachment, was earned through the experiences of people who underwent surgery in eras without modern anesthesia, antibiotics or imaging.

The series now open for submissions invites researchers to document and analyze this heritage in detail, whether through studies of individual surgeons and patients, the evolution of specific techniques and instruments, or the field’s portrayal in art and literature. As the editorial makes clear, the history of plastic and reconstructive surgery is extensive, complex and remarkable in its depth, and the journal intends to ensure that this record, with all of its innovation and all of its human cost, is preserved, examined and made freely available to everyone the specialty serves.

Subject of Research: The history and evolution of plastic and reconstructive surgery from ancient times through modern military-driven innovation

Article Title: History of plastic surgery: introducing a BMC Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery focus series

Article References: Sinelnikov, M. Y. (2025). History of plastic surgery: introducing a BMC Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery focus series. BMC Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 1(1), Article 9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s44452-025-00009-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s44452-025-00009-1

Keywords: plastic surgery, reconstructive surgery, history of medicine, military surgery, Sushruta, Harold Gillies, Archibald McIndoe, microsurgery, world wars, surgical innovation, open access, BMC Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery