Furthermore, Dr. Levin heads the Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation (VCA) Program at Penn Medicine. It was in this surgical leadership role that he directed teams that performed bilateral hand and arm transplant operations in September 2011, followed by similar procedures for two international patients, one in August 2016 and another in February 2019. In 2015, as director of the pediatric hand transplantation program of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, he led the multidisciplinary surgical team that performed the world’s first bilateral hand transplant for a child.
Dr. Levin holds board certification in two specialties, orthopaedic surgery and plastic surgery. He also holds an orthopedic surgery certificate of added qualification in hand surgery. His unique background contributes to his professional focus on surgery of the hand and upper extremity, reconstructive microsurgical techniques for extremity reconstruction, and limb salvage. His research interests strongly focus on extremity soft tissue reconstruction and vascularized composite allotransplantation.
In his role as Chair of the ACS Board of Regents, which he has already assumed, Dr. Levin will work closely with the ACS Executive Director, Dr. David B. Hoyt, and will chair the Regents’ Finance and Executive Committees. The College’s 24-member Board of Regents formulates policy and is ultimately responsible for managing the affairs of the College. The Board’s diversity and variety of experiences and interests among its members enable the Regents to represent views related to myriad issues in contemporary surgery.
A Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS) since 1996, Dr. Levin has previously held other leadership roles with ACS. He served as Vice-Chair, Board of Regents (2019-2020); Chair, Advisory Council for Orthopaedic Surgery (2008-2012), and as Specialty Governor for the American Society of Surgery for the Hand (2006-2009). In 2018, he was an admitted as a member of the inaugural class to the ACS Academy of Master Surgeon Educators.
He has also held leadership positions in other surgical organizations. He served as a member of the board of directors of the American Board of Plastic Surgery (2006-2012) and was president of the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery (2006-2007); American Society for Reconstructive Transplantation (2010-2012); American Society for Surgery of the Hand (2018-2019); and Association of Academic Chairmen of Plastic Surgery (2009-2020).
As the author/coauthor of 395 articles in the scientific literature, 85 text book chapters, and 11 textbooks/monographs, Dr. Levin has brought his hand, orthopaedic, and microsurgery expertise to the editorial boards of several journals, which includes serving as the editor-in-chief of Orthoplastic Surgery and the Hand section editor of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Additionally, Dr. Levin received basic science and clinical funding for VCA research from the United States Department of Defense.
Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. Levin has been a committed medical educator. He was recognized with the Master Clinician/Teacher Award for accomplishments in clinical care and education while at Duke University (2007) and received the I.S. Ravdin Master Clinician Award, a Penn Medicine Award of Excellence at the Perelman School of Medicine (2014).
He has also served as the Orthopaedic Trauma Association’s Distinguished Visiting Scholar, performing surgery with military surgeons for wounded soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC) in Germany in 2009.
About L. Scott Levin, MD, FACS
Dr. Levin graduated from Duke University, Durham, N.C., with a bachelors of science degree in zoology (1977) and earned his medical doctorate (MD) from Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia (1983). He completed surgical residency training at Duke University Medical Center in orthopaedic surgery (1988) followed by three additional years of residency training in plastic, reconstructive, maxillofacial and oral surgery (1991). He has also been honored with multiple specialty training fellowships in hand and microvascular surgery throughout the world. Following residency training, Dr. Levin served as a Captain, U.S. Army Medical Corps Reserve (1989-1998), and began his academic surgery career at Duke University Medical Center (1991) as assistant professor in both the division of orthopaedic surgery and the division of plastic, reconstructive, maxillofacial and oral surgery. He rose through the ranks at Duke, attaining the positions of division chief and residency program director in the division of plastic, reconstructive, maxillofacial and oral surgery; associate professor, division of orthopaedic surgery; and professor, department of surgery. He is also the founding director of Duke's human tissue laboratory and also directed the anatomic gifts program. He later established a human tissue laboratory at Penn (2011). These laboratories provide a teaching environment and research facility benefiting medical students and residents.
