Local Plastic Surgeon Authors Textbook

R. Michael Koch, MD, of the New York Group for Plastic Surgery in Tarrytown has co-authored a new text book on plastic surgery, Plastic Surgery: Clinical Problem Solving.

The book, written with Peter J. Taub, MD, discusses the best surgical approaches to a range of reconstructive and cosmetic problems.

"The target audience for the book is medical students and doctors in training, and doctors seeking recertification," Dr. Koch said. Board-certified plastic surgeons must be recertified every 10 years, he noted, which means that they have to keep current on the latest surgical techniques. "The book is based on case studies, so every chapter is one clinical scenario. It walks you through the problem and shows you the surgical strategies for it."

Each of the 52 chapter was written by Drs. Koch and Taub, and was then edited by an expert in that specific type of surgery, he added. In addition to discussing the best approaches and treatments to each problem, the chapters include what doctors call "practical pearls," or tips and advice that a surgeon has gathered through experience.

This is Dr. Koch's first book, although he has written chapters for other medical textbooks. Sales of the book are doing well, he said.

Although many people think of face lifts and other cosmetic surgery when they think of plastic surgery, reconstructive surgery is much more common, said Dr. Koch.

"That is one of the challenges when you practice comprehensive plastic surgery, that belief that it only is cosmetic surgery." In his practice, he performs many cancer reconstructive procedures as well as orthopedic reconstructions.

Dr. Koch, who is a Fellow of the American College of Surgery as well as a board-certified plastic surgeon, is Chief of Microsurgery and Reimplantation at Westchester Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Surgery at New York Medical College in Valhalla.

Microsurgery, which involves connecting tiny blood vessels so that a piece of tissue from elsewhere in the body has an adequate blood supply, is often used in breast reconstruction after mastectomy. "Another area is if you are unfortunate enough to cut off a finger, we can reattach it," he noted.

Dr. Koch was raised in Scotland, although he came to the United States after high school.  He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara and the Hahnemann School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

He completed a residency in general surgery at George Washington Medical Center in Washington, DC, and a residency in plastic surgery at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. He has with the New York Group for Plastic Surgery, which also has an office in Goshen, for 7 years.