PHILADELPHIA – Penn Medicine’s L. Scott Levin, MD, FACS, the Paul B. Magnuson Professor of Bone and Joint Surgery, chairman of the department of Orthopedic Surgery, and a professor of Plastic Surgery, has been elected President of the American Society for the Surgery of the Hand (ASSH). Levin will be introduced as president on September 15, 2018, during the organization’s 73rd annual meeting in Boston. He will serve in this role through 2019.
Levin is the pioneer of orthoplastic surgery — which simultaneously applies principles of orthopaedic surgery and reconstructive plastic surgery to limb-threatening problems resulting in limb salvage. As an international leader in vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA)— the transplant of multiple types of body tissues such as an entire hand, arm, or face—Levin led the team from Penn Medicine which performed the Philadelphia region’s first adult bilateral hand transplant (2011) and the country’s first bilateral hand transplant on an international patient (2017), as well as the Penn Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) teams which performed the world’s first pediatric bilateral hand transplant (2015).
“I am truly honored to assume this role, and am humbled to have been selected to lead such an esteemed group of clinicians,” said Levin, who is also director of Penn Medicine’s Hand Transplant Program and director of the CHOP Pediatric Hand Transplant Program. “It is my hope that I can continue to work collaboratively with surgeons in the United States and around the world to advance the missions of clinical care, research and education.”
The ASSH was formed shortly after World War II by like-minded doctors to share and discuss what they had learned about treating hand issues in wounded service members. What began as a meeting between 35 military hand surgeons in 1946 has grown to include more than 3,800, orthopedic, plastic surgeons and general surgeons from around the world. This history dovetails with Levin’s experience treating American soldiers in Landstuhl, Germany who were injured by explosions in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As an extension of this passion, he led Penn Orthopaedics to launch the Penn Center for Orthoplastics and Limb Salvage, which brings clinical teams together to help those who are facing the threat of limb loss.
Levin came to Penn Medicine in 2009 from Duke University, where he served as the division chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. While at Duke he also established and served as director of Duke’s Human Tissue Laboratory, and he directed the Anatomic Gifts Program. Levin went on to establish the Human Tissue Laboratory at Penn, which opened in May 2011 to serve as a teaching tool and a research facility benefiting students, residents and CME participants. Levin has also been recognized for his commitment to education, having received the Master Clinician/Teacher Award for his accomplishments in both clinical care and education at Duke, and Penn’s I.S. Ravdin Master Clinician Award.
Levin has published more than 340 peer-reviewed journal articles and 11 books, and he has served as president of the World Society of Reconstructive Microsurgery, the American Society for Reconstructive Transplantation, and the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery. He is also a regent of the American College of Surgeons. He has also served as the ASSH’s Sterling Bunnell Traveling Fellowship—named for one of its founders—and in 2015 he was awarded the society’s Andrew J. Weiland Medal.
Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.
The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $550 million awarded in the 2022 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts” in medicine, Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries and innovations that have shaped modern medicine, including recent breakthroughs such as CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System’s patient care facilities stretch from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. These include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Lancaster General Health, Penn Medicine Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, Penn Medicine at Home, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.
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