Michael L. Lewin papers

Michael L. Lewin was born Miecyslaus Lewin in Warsaw, Poland on November 18, 1909. He received an M.D. from the University of Zurich in Switzerland in 1933. Encouraged by his uncle, Dr. Jacques Maliniac, to pursue a career in plastic surgery, Lewin moved to the United States in 1934 and became a resident in otolaryngology at Beth Israel Hospital in New York, New York. He married in 1940.

Lewin’s efforts to establish a private practice were delayed by the onset of World War II. From 1942-1946, Lewin served in the United States Army Medical Corps as chief of the Plastic Surgery and Maxillofacial Section of the Hammond General Hospital in Modesto, California, then as assistant chief of Plastic Surgery and Maxillofacial Surgery at Bushnell General Hospital in Brigham, Utah and later at Cushing General Hospital in Framingham, Massachusetts. As a major in the Medical Corps, he was one of the 100 “Critical Specialists” not allowed to leave his position. Following the war, he served as attending surgeon in charge of plastic surgery at the Halloran Veterans Administration Hospital in Staten Island, New York 1943-1951; senior attending surgeon in plastic surgery at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Paterson, New Jersey 1947-1969; at the Barnert Hospital in Paterson 1948-1969; and at Englewood Hospital, Englewood, New Jersey 1949-1952, where he consulted from 1952-1990. Lewin was founder and chief of the Plastic Surgery Service at Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, from 1958-1976; chief of the Unified Plastic Surgery Division of Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center and the hospital of Albert Einstein College of Medicine and affiliated hospitals from 1976-1978; founder and director of the Center for Craniofacial Disorders, Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center from 1960-1978. He also consulted at other hospitals in the Bronx and Beacon, New York.

By mid-career Lewin began providing his reconstructive surgery expertise to numerous special projects, many of which were overseas. In 1952 he took part in a mission to help the Israeli army organize a plastic surgery program. From 1964-1968, he served as principal investigator in the Surgical and Social Rehabilitation of Adult Offenders, performing corrective plastic surgery on people incarcerated at Sing Sing Prison in Ossing, New York. At the height of the Vietnam War in 1967, Lewin went to Saigon to teach and perform reconstructive surgery techniques with other volunteers in the Plastic Surgery Program of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in cooperation with CARE-MEDICO. He served on the faculty for post-graduate courses of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) from 1975-1982, teaching in Brazil, Japan, Switzerland, Turkey, England, South Africa, Singapore, and Mexico. He was a visiting professor in Indonesia in 1982 and 1983, as well as at many hospitals in the United States. Fluent in several Eastern European languages, he served as group leader for the People to People Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Exchange Project in Eastern Europe in 1986. In 1987 he was professor of post-graduate education in aesthetic plastic surgery for the Educational Foundation of ISAPS.

Lewin belonged to many medical societies throughout his career, serving as president of the New York Regional Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 1965-1966; chairman of the New York State Medical Society, Section on Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 1968; vice president of the New York Society for Surgery of the Hand 1973-1974; regional secretary for North America 1973-1975 and first vice president 1977-1979 of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery; and president of the American Cleft Palate Educational Foundation 1983. Lewin served as president of the medical board of Montefiore Medical Center 1975-1976; as chairman of the Judicial Council of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 1981-1984; and as a member of the Committee on Ethics of the New York State Medical Society 1984-1985. He contributed five chapters and 83 articles to the plastic surgery literature, primarily in the area of craniofacial surgery, but also on hands, breasts, and the lower extremities. He also published on plastic surgery in the rehabilitation of people in prison, on medicine in Israel, and on plastic surgery in Czechoslovakia. He served on the Editorial Boards of the Cleft Palate Journal in 1989 and of Advances in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery from 1984-1991.

Lewin died May 11, 1991. The Michael Lewin Memorial Lectureship in Plastic Surgery was established in cooperation with the Department of Plastic Surgery at Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center in 1992.