Cleveland, OH-based facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon Patrick J. Byrne, MD, MBA, has been appointed as the new president of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (AAFPRS) for the 2024-2025 term. Dr. Byrne formally assumed the role during the 2024 AAFPRS Annual Business Meeting in New Orleans, LA, on October 26, 2024.
The AAFPRS is the world's largest specialty association for facial plastic and reconstructive surgery. The organization seeks to educate medical professionals, the government, and the general public about facial plastic and reconstructive surgery as a specialty that requires intensive training and competence, embodies high ethical standards, artistic ideals, a commitment to humanitarian service, and a desire to enhance the quality of human life.
Dr. Byrne is internationally recognized as a facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon, with focuses on microsurgical facial reconstruction, skin cancer management, and facial aesthetic surgery. “I am honored to lead this Academy, which has a longstanding history of collaboratively pursuing clinical excellence on behalf of patients across the nation and the world. Facial Plastic Surgeons are extremely specialized, focusing exclusively on plastic surgery of the face, head and neck," he says. "At the same time, the field has enormous breadth across reconstructive and aesthetic interventions, from birth into the elder years. This is reflected in the ways our members choose to focus their own practices, both in private and academic settings.”
Dr. Byrne is the Enterprise Chief of the Cleveland Clinic Integrated Surgical Institute and Chair of the Head and Neck Surgery Department at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. In this role, Dr. Byrne leads Cleveland Clinic’s surgical specialty departments efforts to be the world leader in patient care, outcomes, education, safety, innovation and research. He is also a Professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine as well as at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD.
Previously, Dr. Byrne served as the Director of the Division of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in the Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. While there, he directed the Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Fellowship program and co-directed the Johns Hopkins Face Transplant Program. Dr. Byrne continues to serve as the co-Director of the Randolph B. Capone Cleft and Palate Program at Greater Baltimore Medical Center.