Ethnicity in facial plastic surgery.

摘要

According to Wikipedia online (http://en.wiki-pedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_group), an "ethnic group is a group of humans whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or assumed. This shared heritage may be based upon putative common ancestry, history, kinship, religion, language, shared territory, nationality or physical appearance. Members of an ethnic group are conscious of belonging to an ethnic group; moreover ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness." And so the question presents itself quite clearly in the physician-patient relationship: Are patients from an ethnic group, in any of its definitions of similarity, seeking to preserve, modify, or change that similarity, and to what extent and for what purpose? These indeed are considerations that must be discussed before embarking on any quest to change facial features.