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Bohdan Pomahac, MD

Frank F. Kanthak Professor of Surgery (Plastics)
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Additional Titles

Chief, Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery

Professor, Surgery

About

Titles

Frank F. Kanthak Professor of Surgery (Plastics)

Chief, Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery; Professor, Surgery

Biography

Dr. Bohdan Pomahac is Division Chief of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery. Dr. Pomahac joined the Yale Surgery and Smilow Cancer Hospital community from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he was the Roberta and Stephen R. Weiner Distinguished Chair in Surgery and Director of Vascular Composite Allograft Transplantation program.

A pioneer in his field, Dr. Pomahac’s team performed the first three full-face transplant procedures in the United States, and the first successful bilateral upper extremity transplantation in the Northeast. Dr. Pomahac made Brigham and Women’s Hospital the world leader in vascularized composite transplantation completing 10 face and 3 bilateral hand transplants.

Dr. Pomahac’s expertise adds to a growing portfolio of destination programs in the Division of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery at Yale, which has grown into a multidisciplinary enterprise—with novel programs across Connecticut, including wound healing, craniofacial surgery, melanoma treatment, targeted muscle reinnervation, breast reconstruction, and cutting-edge research in machine learning and 3D printing.

Appointments

Other Departments & Organizations

Education & Training

Chief Resident
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Children’s Hospital Boston, Shriners Hospital Boston (2004)
Resident
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Children’s Hospital Boston, Shriners Hospital Boston (2003)
Resident
Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Faulkner Hospital, West Roxbury VA Medical Center (2001)
Research Fellow
Brigham and Women’s Hospital (1998)
MD
Palacky University School of Medicine

Research

Overview

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

Plastic Surgery Procedures

Research at a Glance

Yale Co-Authors

Frequent collaborators of Bohdan Pomahac's published research.

Publications

2024

Academic Achievements & Community Involvement

  • honor

    Frank F Kanthak Professor of Surgery

  • honor

    Gratias Agit Award

  • honor

    Roberta and Stephen R Weiner Distinguished Chair in Surgery

  • honor

    Sushruta Guha Professorship in Plastic Surgery and Wound Healing

  • honor

    Medal of Honor – Awarded by the President of the Czech Republic

Clinical Care

Overview

Bohdan Pomahac, MD, is the division chief of Yale Medicine Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, and director of the Face Transplant Program, a program that focuses on face transplantation for patients who have severe disfiguration. He also performs a broad variety of plastic and aesthetic procedures on the entire body, and has special expertise in breast reconstruction, aesthetic surgery, head and neck facial reconstruction, and trauma and burn reconstruction.

Dr. Pomahac was drawn to plastic surgery by the complexity of facial reconstruction. Early on, he embarked on the effort to establish a face transplantation program, a relatively new area of plastic surgery in which he became a pioneer. Before coming to Yale, he led a team that performed the first three full-face transplant procedures in the United States and a total of 10 face transplants—currently the most in the world for a single center—in addition to the first successful bilateral upper extremity transplantations in the Northeast.

“I like to think about plastic surgery as a glue for all surgical services,” Dr. Pomahac says. For example, plastic surgeons treat cancer patients to help them heal, play a key role in treating trauma patients, and manage problems like chronic wounds. “Our scope of practice is very broad,” he says. “It ranges from young children with congenital defects to elderly patients, and it extends to every part of the body. It could be face, head and neck, trauma, a congenital deformity, or an aesthetic problem. But it could be also a problem on your heel or big toe that we're able to fix. Every reconstruction ends as an aesthetic case.”

He advises patients to choose plastic surgeons with the appropriate amount of expertise needed to develop the best approach for their problem. “In plastic surgery, there are half a dozen solutions for any problem. And the surgeon has the opportunity to come up with customized solutions and unique answers to any particular challenge,” he says.

In addition to caring for patients, Dr. Pomahac is a professor of surgery at Yale School of Medicine who, for the past eight years, has been researching perfusion technologies to maintain the viability of donated tissues to be used in transplants. It’s a strategy scientists have studied for organ transplantation, and he is interested in the approach for surgeries such as limb and face transplantation. He is also studying how well plastic surgeons who provide those surgeries can achieve the restoration of motor function, sensation, and quality of life for their patients.

Clinical Specialties

Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery; Breast Reconstructive Surgery; Craniofacial Surgery

Fact Sheets

Board Certifications

  • Plastic Surgery

    Certification Organization
    AB of Plastic Surgery
    Original Certification Date
    2005

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Contacts

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Appointment Number

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Locations

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