Plastic surgeon named ASSH president – first since ’98
W.P. Andrew Lee, MD, Baltimore, director of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has been elected president of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH). He is the first plastic surgeon in 13 years to be elected ASSH president.
Dr. Lee has led five hand transplant surgeries - including the nation's first double-hand transplant and first above-arm transplant - from March 2009 to September 2010 as chief of plastic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).
"Being chosen to lead a premier medical organization - particularly one with such a rich history, is a great honor and great responsibility," Dr. Lee says. " I look forward to continuing my work with a group that counts among its membership some of the country's most highly regarded surgeons."
Johns Hopkins CEO and medical faculty dean Edward Miller, MD, lauded Dr. Lee's skills and dedication. "We're very fortunate to have Dr. Lee on faculty," he says. "This well-deserved appointment reinforces Dr. Lee's reputation as one of the field's shining stars. We're proud and delighted that our colleague will be leading the society forward."
Among Dr. Lee's many accomplishments is the groundbreaking "Pittsburgh Protocol," an anti-rejection therapy that reduces the number and amount of drugs introduced into patients for immunosuppression after transplantation.
Dr. Lee was installed as ASSH president during the organization's 66th annual meeting held in Las Vegas in September.
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