Gynecomastia or male breast development can be a very traumatizing experience for young men. It is common during puberty for boys to experience some breast development and in a few cases it persists beyond puberty. If the gynecomastia persists for a long period of time the young man may be referred to a plastic surgeon for surgery. Often the young man is concerned about the appearance of his chest and may be wearing heavy clothes to camouflage his chest and avoiding situations where he might have to take his shirt off such as swimming . The surgical approach to gynecomastia can be done through an incision around the areola or , as is my preference , through an incision on the lateral chest. I prefer the incision on the lateral chest as it does not draw attention to the breast area and can more quickly allow the boy to resume normal activitie such as taking his shirt off the play basketball without anyone questioning the scar and what procedure he might have had done. If there is a recent scar on both nipple areola complexes I think this is more likely to raise question than if the are two asymmetrically placed scars an the lateral chest which are not both seen at the same time when one is looking straight on at the young man. After surgery the young man does need to wear a compression vest but there are ones out that can easily be worn under a T shirt without being seen. It may take weeks or even several months to see the full effect of the surgery so the winter months are goo d times to do the surgery so that everything is as healed as possible before the next swimming season rolls around.