美容整形外科的目的是为快速出版有关提高美容整形外科艺术的技术的原创文章提供一个论坛。尽管这些文章中的许多都将描述外科技术本身，但其他文章将处理外科手术中的并发症以及治疗或避免并发症的方法。”关于应该或可能放弃、修改或改进的久已确立的技术的第二种想法，以及专门讨论使用一种特定技术与另一种技术产生的争议的专题讨论会，并将包括从这些对话中吸取的教训。个别或孤立的病例史，可能会增加专业知识及其进步的资金；美容整形外科医生使用的手术器械、药物和手术室设备的改进；以及美容整形外科中的辅助问题的讨论，例如心理社会因素的作用。医患关系中的行动者和病人与公众的相互关系，都将被呈现出来。预防医学和遗传咨询在避免一些最终需要美容手术矫正的疾病中的作用，以及影响患者和外科医生对身体特征整体外观的审美判断的某些因素，以及身体人类学在理解中的重要性。将讨论患者对特定类型手术的种族要求。论述了美容整形外科的发展和持续发展的历史，以及“社会”和“公众”对美容整形外科使用“正当性”的态度。也许最重要的是，将发表论文和报告，讨论美容整形手术作为长期和冗长的重建手术治疗先天性、后天性、偶然性和肿瘤性缺陷患者整体康复的最后一步的作用越来越大。
The purpose of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery is to provide a forum for the rapid publication of original articles dealing with techniques advancing the art of aesthetic plastic surgery. Although many of these articles will describe surgical craftsmanship per se others will deal with complications in surgical procedures and methods by which to treat or avoid them. "Second thoughts" about long established techniques, which should or might be abandoned, modified, or improved, as well as symposia devoted to the controversies arising from the use of one particular technique vs. another and the lessons to be learned from these dialogues will be included. Individual or isolated case histories, which may add to the specialty's increasing fund of knowledge and its advancement; improvements in surgical instruments, pharmaceuticals, and operating room equipment of use to the aesthetic plastic surgeon; and discussions of ancillary problems in aesthetic plastic surgery, such as the role of psychosocial factors in the doctor-patient and the patient-public interrelationships, are all to be presented. The role of preventive medicine and genetic counseling in averting some of the conditions that ultimately require aesthetic surgical correction, as well as certain factors that influence the patient's and surgeon's aesthetic judgement in relation to the overall appearance of a body feature, and the importance of physical anthropology in understanding the patient's ethnic requirements for a particular type of surgical procedure will be discussed. The history of the development and continuing growth of aesthetic plastic surgery and the attitudes of "society" and "the public" concerning the "justification" for the use of aesthetic plastic surgery will be dealt with. Perhaps most importantly, papers and reports are to be published discussing the increasing role of aesthetic plastic surgery as the final step in the overall rehabilitation of patients undergoing longstanding and tedious reconstructive surgery for the repair of congenital, acquired, accidental and neoplastic defects.