Surgical Modification
From BMEzine Encyclopedia
A surgical modification in this context tends to mean a procedure that is far more invasive than piercing, tattooing, or scarification. Examples include implants (although some artists would disagree), tongue splitting, subincision, castration, and amputations.
In an ideal world, these procedures would be offered by doctors, but unfortunately there is a great deal of pressure on doctors stopping them from offering unconventional procedures. As such, most of the time surgical modifications are left in the hands of cutters, or are self-done.
Surgical procedures are rarely legal for the untrained and unlicensed public to perform commercially, although some procedures such as implants currently fall in a grey area. When performed non-commercially further procedures may also be grey. Self-done procedures are almost always legal, although they can cause other problems like (unjustified) psychiatric commitment.
Non-doctors performing these modifications face the possibility of being charged with practicing medicine without a license.
