Andrea Pusic

Andrea Pusic, MD, MHS, FACS, FRCSC, has been named chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Brigham Health, effective March 1.

Before joining the Brigham, Pusic was an attending plastic surgeon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and a professor of surgery at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York.

She is an internationally renowned innovator and leader in the area of patient-reported outcomes and surgical experience. She was the director of the MSKCC Patient-Reported Outcomes and Surgical Experience Program, and has served as the American College of Surgeons’ representative to the International Patient Reported Outcome Measurements (PROMs) Collaborative.

Pusic’s research focuses on the measurement of quality of life and patient satisfaction in surgery. Dual training in epidemiology and surgery has enabled her to lead a team of experts in psychometrics, quality of life and social science methods to develop, validate and use new quantitative measures to assess patient outcomes.

The patient-reported outcomes instrument she developed for breast surgery, known as BREAST-Q, has been widely adopted for research and clinical care and serves as the basis for development of other outcome measures in surgery.

“Dr. Pusic is a highly effective leader, and I am confident she will build on the strong foundation we have in place within our plastic surgery programs,” said Brigham Health Surgeon-in-Chief Gerard Doherty, MD, chair of the Department of Surgery. “Her expertise in patient-reported outcomes and surgical experience will create opportunities throughout the Brigham and Boston communities for both research and clinical patient care initiatives.”

Outside of the Brigham, Pusic serves as vice president of WomenforWomen Reconstructive Surgery, a charity supported by female plastic surgeons whose goal is to help women suffering from disfiguring or socially excluding injuries and trauma. She also regularly leads surgical camps to provide reconstructive surgery for injured women and girls in the developing world.

Pusic earned her medical degree at the Cumming School of Medicine in Alberta, Canada, and her master’s of public health at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. She completed a general surgery residency at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, and a plastic surgery residency at McGill University in Montreal, followed by a plastic and reconstructive surgery fellowship at MSKCC.