Tradition and Future of the Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons.

1 Editorial Current day Hallyu (Korean wave) culture is rapidly spreading throughout Asia and the world, moving from the periphery of global culture towards the center. 'Plastic Surgery Hallyu' has joined K-pop, TV dramas, dancing, and food as one of the pillars of the Hallyu craze, and the Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons (KSPRS) is showing the world its outstanding results in both surgery and research. In 2015, The Washington Post published a portrayal of plastic surgery in Ko-rea, saying that " South Korea is the plastic surgery capital of the world " [1]. In 2016, KSPRS will welcome the 50th anniversary of its founding. The inaugural assembly of the Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons was held on May 15, 1966, initiated by around thirty professional doctors interested in the field of plastic surgery, including general surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, otorhinolaryngologists, and ophthalmologists, with Yonsei Uni-versity's School of Medicine playing a key role. After this, a specialized training system was implemented in 1973, and Korea produced its first plastic surgeon specialist in 1975 [2]. Developing during the 60's and 70's into the 'Miracle on the Han River' , South Korea's economy grew with dazzling speed, and this was accompanied with similarly dazzling developments in Korea's plastic surgery field. In just the short period since its founding, KSPRS has developed dynamically, growing into a large professional organization with over two thousand members. We have become the third largest such organization for plastic surgeons in the world after those in the United States and Brazil [3]. In addition, we have entered into a formal partnership with the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), and in 2013, we participated in the ASPS's annual scientific meeting as a guest nation. The official journal of KSPRS is the Archives of Plastic Surgery (Arch Plast Surg, APS). A Korean-language journal with the title Journal of the Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons began being published in 1974, and in 2012, after the name change that accompanied its transition to being produced in Eng-lish, it started being published six times yearly. A peer-reviewed journal, APS is currently indexed and tracked in the PubMed, There have been tangible results achieved during the four years since this transition to English, and we are devoted to striving to become more than just the representative journal of Korea, but the highest quality journal for plastic surgery in …