L. Scott Levin, MD, FACS, FAOA, is the Paul B. Magnuson Professor of Bone and Joint Surgery (with tenure), Chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (Penn), and Professor of Surgery (Plastic Surgery). He is also Medical Director of the Penn Musculoskeletal and Rheumatology Service Line, Director of the Hand Transplant Program and leads the reconstructive microsurgery team at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).
Dr. Levin is board-certified in Orthopaedic Surgery and Plastic Surgery, and has a Certificate of Added Qualification in Hand Surgery.
As an accomplished clinician, Dr. Levin’s expertise focuses on surgery of the hand and upper extremity, reconstructive microsurgical and microvascular techniques for extremity reconstruction and limb salvage. His research interests focus predominantly on extremity soft tissue reconstruction and vascularized composite tissue allotransplantation.
Prior to his work at Penn and CHOP, Dr. Levin worked collaboratively with colleagues across medical disciplines to establish Duke University’s Human Fresh Tissue Laboratory, where he was director. He also directed the university’s Anatomic Gifts Program.
When Dr. Levin joined the staff at Penn, he established a similar program in Pennsylvania. Penn’s Human Fresh Tissue Laboratory opened in May 2011. Today, the lab acts as a teaching tool and a research facility benefiting students, residents and CME participants. Dr. Levin heads the Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation (VCA) Program at Penn and directed the teams that performed bilateral hand and arm transplants in September 2011, August 2016 and February 2019. In 2015, as Director of the Pediatric Hand Transplantation Program of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr. Levin led the team that performed the world’s first bilateral hand transplant in a child. A year later, Dr. Levin led a team performing the first transcontinental hand transplant.
As a dedicated educator, Dr. Levin has been recognized for his commitment to teaching with the 2007 Master Clinician/Teacher Award for his accomplishments in both clinical care and education at Duke University. In 2014, he was awarded the I.S. Ravdin Master Clinician Award, a Penn Medicine Award of Excellence at the Perelman School of Medicine at UPenn. In 2015, Dr. Levin was named Individual Innovator of the Year at the Philadelphia Business Journal Healthcare Innovator Awards. In 2018, Dr. Levin was inducted into the Academy of Master Surgeon Educators of the American College of Surgeons.
Widely published with more than 400 peer-reviewed journal articles, 85 book chapters and 11 books, Dr. Levin also actively participates in senior leadership activities of many international and national professional societies and associations, including serving as Board of Regents Chair and Orthopaedic Regent of the American College of Surgeons, past-President of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, past-Chair of the VCA Transplantation Committee of the United Network for Organ Sharing, President of the World Society of Reconstructive Microsurgery (2013-2015), President of the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery (2006-2007), member-at-large of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, President of the American Society for Reconstructive Transplantation (2010-2012), and member of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Plastic Surgery (2006-2012). In addition, Dr. Levin has been honored as a North American Traveling Fellow, the American British Canadian Traveling Fellow by the American Orthopedic Association, and the Sterling Bunnell Traveling Fellow by the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. In 2015, he was awarded the Andrew J. Weiland Medal by the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. He has served as the Orthopaedic Trauma Association’s Landstuhl Scholar, caring for our war-injured soldiers in Germany.
Dr. Levin is responsible for developing the field of “orthoplastic surgery” and currently is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Orthoplastic Surgery
