Paul Tessier (August 1917 – June 6, 2008) was a French maxillofacial surgeon and one of the founders of plastic surgery.He was considered the father of moderncraniofacial surgery.[1]
Born inHéric,Loire-Atlantique, Dr. Tessier first attended theEcole de Médecine inNantes, Loire-Atlantique, eventually receiving hisDoctor of Medicine degree from theFaculté de Médecine de Paris in 1943. In 1942, during internship he started operating on people withcleft lip and cleft palate andDupuytren's contracture. He joined the pediatric surgery service at Hospital St. Joseph in Paris in 1944. From late 1944 to 1946, he worked at the Center ofMaxillofacial Surgery of the Military Region of Paris in Hospital Puteaux. In 1949, he returned to Nantes to become a surgical consultant inophthalmology.
Dr. Tessier started to improve surgical techniques to correct craniofacial deformations in the mid-1950s. He performed his first craniofacial operation in 1967. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he developed the following methods:
In the 1970s, he began traveling to theUnited States to demonstrate his procedures. Today, his techniques are applied not only toplastic andmaxillofacial surgery, but also other specialties such astrauma andneurosurgery. He was an honorary member of theAmerican College of Surgeons, theRoyal College of Surgeons at London, and theAmerican Society of Plastic Surgeons.
