When we speak of plastic surgery, the first thing that comes to our mind is a nose surgery, a facelift or breast surgery. Cosmetic procedures are extremely popular with people all over the world, but there is more to plastic surgery than cosmetic procedures. Reconstructive surgery is another branch of plastic surgery which can work wonders for people who have undergone trauma or have birth defects.

Meet Dr. Kim Woo-kyung. He is the professor and director of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Korea University Guro Hospital. Dr. Kim is the first surgeon to successfully connect 10 severed fingers. A 22-year-old book maker who had all 10 fingers cut off in a 1987 factory accident may have ended up as a fingerless victim of a terrible mishap, but Kim and his team of surgeons performed an unprecedented operation. The surgery took 32 hours. The surgeon and his team had to connect every tissue, muscle and nerve to get those fingers working just as before. It was an operation that surprised doctors all over the world.

A few years later, another case led Kim to break a commonly held belief.

A four-year-old victim of a car accident had a finger severed for two days with the severed member stored in a refrigerator. While medical textbooks and surgeons said restoring a finger more than eight hours after amputation is impossible, Kim said he would take a shot at it.

Dr. Kim feels that most plastic surgeons these days prefer focusing on cosmetic surgery, whereas, there is a whole new side to plastic surgery, where so much can be done.

Dr. Kim is currently the chairman of the Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons and president of the Korean Society for Microsurgery, making him the leader in the nation’s top plastic surgery related societies.

A graduate of KU, Kim started his medical career as an intern in 1981 and became a specialist and professor in 1986. He recalled that in earlier days over 90 percent of doctors wanted to become a professor, so it was a privilege for him to get offered the job, which he still holds today.