Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and one of the affiliate medical centers of the Harvard Plastic Surgery Residency Program, is a Level 1 Trauma Center with 585 licensed beds.  BIDMC hosts nearly three quarters of a million patient visits annually in and around Boston.  BIDMC was a 1996 merger of the Beth Israel and Deaconess hospitals.  Both hospitals had a long and distinct history within the Boston and Harvard communities.  The Deaconess Hospital was founded by Methodist Deaconesses in 1896 as part of a missionary charter to care for city residents in Boston.  The BIDMC was established in 1916 by the Boston Jewish community to meet the needs of the growing immigrant population.  The BIDMC has approximately 600 beds. Prior to the establishment of the Harvard Combined Plastic Surgery Residency Program, there was an accredited plastic surgery residency program at the Deaconess Hospital headed by the late Francis G. Wolfort, M.D. Rotations for the residency took place at the Deaconess Hospital, Cambridge Hospital, and at the Beth Israel Hospital, under its Chief of Plastic Surgery, and former editor of the PRS, Robert M. Goldwyn, M.D., who still is actively involved in the residency.

Currently, the Division of Plastic Surgery at the BIDMC is headed by Sumner A. Slavin, M.D.   The Division offers a full-array and varied experience in both reconstructive and aesthetic plastic surgery.  As of July 1, 2007, there will be five full-time faculty plastic surgeons on staff, as well as five senior community plastic surgeons that operate at the medical center.  The hand service, which is also covered by plastic surgery, the residents also work in collaboration with the Orthopedic Hand Faculty and participate in didactics integrating both orthopedic and plastic surgical approaches to treating the upper extremity.