Editorial

Dear Colleagues,

You are receiving the second issue of Acta Chirurgiae Plasticae this year. I hope it caught you in a good mood. The last twelve months of our lives have been very atypical and turbulent. It must be said that the period we are currently living does not favor the development of science in our workplaces. Most of us have prosaic worries in our daily working lives. There is no time left to develop scientific activities alongside normal and covid work.

I don't know what the situation at your departments or clinics is like but at our Plastic Surgery Department in Bratislava, we have only been able to operate acute conditions, injuries and urgent oncological cases recently. This period did not favor the introduction of the latest scientific trends into routine medical practice. Patients could not come for regular check-ups. The results of previous operations were difficult to trace retrospectively. Our young doctors had to work at covid wards, vaccination clinics or sampling points for testing covid patients. Therefore, it did not increase their time to expand their scientific skills.

Fortunately, we managed to compile the issue of Acta Chirurgiae Plasticae, which you are holding in your hands. In this issue, articles from reconstructive plastic surgery are presented to you. You will be able to read very interesting case reports or a paper about a retrospective study of microsurgical reconstructions of the thumb, and you may also be inspired by new flaps suitable for the reconstruction of defects in the head and neck region or defects of various etiologies.

I hope that the content of this issue of Acta Chirurgiae Plasticae will motivate you for your further work in the field of reconstructive plastic surgery.

Drahomír Palenčár, MD, PhD

Head of Plastic Surgery Department

School of Medicine

Comenius University,

Bratislava, Slovakia