Dr. William C. Pederson, chief of Plastic Surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital, has been named the Josephine Abercrombie Endowed Professor in Plastic Surgery Research, and Dr. Richard Hopper, medical director of Plastic Surgery in Austin, has been named the Samuel Stal, MD Endowed Chair in Plastic Surgery.
“Both Dr. Pederson and Dr. Hopper are exceptionally worthy recipients of these endowed positions,” said Texas Children’s Surgeon-in-Chief Dr. Larry Hollier. “We are grateful to our generous donors and hospital leadership for creating these endowments to recruit and retain the most talented surgeons to care for our patients.”
The Josephine Abercrombie Endowed Professorship in Plastic Surgery Research was established by Ms. Abercrombie’s son, George Robinson, to honor his mother and the Abercrombie legacy of giving to Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine. J.S. Abercrombie, Josephine’s father, was one of the founders of Texas Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Pederson is an internationally renowned hand and microvascular surgeon with faculty appointments in plastic surgery, orthopedics, neurosurgery and pediatrics at Texas Children’s and Baylor. His clinical interests include the management of vascular problems in the upper extremity, nerve injury and repair including brachial plexus, Volkmann’s ischemic contracture, facial paralysis and microsurgical reconstruction of complex extremity defects.
A leader in his field, Pederson served as president of the American Association for Hand Surgery and the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery and sat on the executive council of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. He also serves as a member-at-large on the executive council of the World Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery.
Pederson has authored more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed literature and 40 textbook chapters. He is an editor of the textbook “Green’s Operative Hand Surgery,” and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Hand Surgery and the Journal of Reconstructive Microsurgery.
The Samuel Stal, MD Endowed Chair in Plastic Surgery was created through the contributions of Texas Children’s Hospital to honor the legacy of Dr. Samuel Stal, who served as chief of Plastic Surgery at both Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine. For more than 30 years, Dr. Stal focused his Texas Children’s practice on helping children with craniofacial, cleft lip and palate deformities. He also created the Texas Children’s Center for Facial Surgery, which accepted all children with facial deformities regardless of their family’s ability to pay.
Dr. Richard Hopper is the medical director for Plastic Surgery at our North Austin Campus and a professor of Surgery in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. He specializes in craniofacial surgery, specifically the surgical treatment of growth differences of the jaws and skull. This includes conditions such complex craniosynostosis, cleft lip and palate, and Treacher Collins, Crouzon and Apert syndromes. Dr. Hopper is the former president of both the American Society of Craniofacial Surgery and the International Society of Craniofacial Surgery.
His research has resulted in more than 100 publications focused on image-based outcome studies for craniosynostosis and complex craniofacial procedures as well as device design for cleft and craniofacial care. He has trained 38 craniofacial fellows who practice nationally and internationally. Dr. Hopper serves on the SmileTrain Global Medical Advisory Board to advise safety and quality treatment guidelines for patients born with cleft lip and palate around the world.
Dr. Hopper recently came to Texas Children’s after serving as chief of Plastic Surgery at Seattle Children’s Hospital and surgical director of Seattle Children’s Craniofacial Center.
Please join us in congratulating Drs. Pederson and Hopper on their endowed positions!