Rome had many different medicinal people trying to help or make a quick profit on people, knowing that Rome was a massive empire and it was hard to regulate people saying that they were doctors or physicians. Now there were people who knew how to treat symptoms with herbs and make remedies out the Ingredients of herbs to cure colds, head aches, vomiting etc, but they're were only high skilled professionals who could perform surgeries. Now given the time they lived in the surgeries were less complex, like removing hernias and tumors. They're weren't any anesthetics or cameras to do deep surgeries like heart surgeries or help stop the body from bleeding out and the patient dying during a procedure. They're were many different types of surgeries performed to cure different types of ailments. You had to have a highly skilled surgeon to perform these, a person who had deep knowledge on the human anatomy and how they functioned.
One type surgery performed was trepanation, it was a form of brain surgery. It was deigned to help relieve pressure from the head. It was a procedure involving the surgeon to drill a hole in the skull and surprisingly there was a high survival rate. It was also conceived by people at the time that this was a form of getting rid of bad spirits. This was also used as a emergency operation, when one suffered a injury to the head. It was used to remove skull fragments and drain the blood filled under skull.
A skull that had the procedure trepanation.
Another form of surgery was cataract surgery. Cataracts is when the eye lens are clouded and it affects the vision and can spread from one eye to the other. A surgeon had to be very careful in dealing with this surgery one mishap could leave the patient blind. It was done by using a shape needle at one end to break up the cataract and on the other side a more blunt end heated to cauterise the wound to prevent it from being infected.
Cosmetic surgery is a very well known in our society, but believe it or not Rome also had cosmetic surgery done on their populace. Known as ancient cosmetic surgery, it was used to get rid of excess skin, fat, or tissue, or get rid of wrinkles on face and body to better the appearance. Also freed slaves who could afford the procedure, liked to remove the branding of their previous owner(s). Also surgeons performed on gladiators who were wounded in battle and deformed, trying to fix their deformities.