William Y. Hoffman, M.D.

Biography

Dr. William Hoffman is the Chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at UCSF. He graduated cum laude from Yale University and obtained his MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. He completed training in General Surgery at UCSF in 1983 and in Plastic Surgery at UCSF in 1985.

An additional year of training was spent at the Institute for Reconstructive plastic Surgery at NYU with Dr. Joseph McCarthy studying craniofacial and cleft lip surgery. Subsequently Dr. Hoffman returned to UCSF to join the faculty, serving as the chief of plastic surgery at San Francisco General Hospital from 1988 to 1996, and Director of Education for the division from 1996 to 2005. He became the head of the division in 2005.

Recently, Dr. Hoffman led a successful effort to pass legislation in California greatly expanding insurance coverage for children with disfiguring cleft palate and other craniofacial anomalies. Hoffman, a pioneer of cranial re-animation surgery and acknowledged innovator in the field, performs complex and intricate surgeries at the UCSF Center for Craniofacial Anomalies. Working in tandem with orthodontists and other specialists, he and colleagues work to restore children's faces to a normal appearance as well as improving their breathing and ability to chew.

Dr. Hoffman is board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery.He is the primary craniofacial and pediatric plastic surgeon at UCSF, performing 300-400 pediatric operations a year on children with a wide range of deformities, including cleft lip and palate, craniosynostosis, facial palsy, hemangiomas, birthmarks, and vascular anomalies. His adult practice deals with complex facial reconstruction as well as facial aesthetic surgery, including facelifts, rhinoplasty, and blepharoplasty. He has published over 35 peer-reviewed articles as well as numerous invited chapters. Highly respected by his peers, Dr. Hoffman was named to the list of U.S. News "America's Top Doctors," a distinction reserved for the top 1% of physicians in the nation for a given specialty.

He is on the Board of the American Society of Maxillofacial Surgery, the Executive Council of the California Society of Plastic Surgeons, is the current President of the American Society of Pediatric Plastic Surgery, and is a senior examiner for the American Board of Plastic Surgery.