Ivona Percec, MD, PhD

Ivona Percec, MD, PhD

University of Pennsylvania

Board-certified plastic surgeon Ivona Percec, MD, PhD, is a rarity. Not only does she conduct research in addition to her surgical work, but by choosing plastic surgery as her focus, she knew she was entering an incredibly demanding medical specialty, historically popular among men.

Because of the sacrifices and schedule juggling involved in surgery and research, many women pursue other medical fields that give them a greater opportunity to balance family life. Dr. Percec, however, was undaunted. In fact, she ended up being the only woman to give birth to two children during her surgical residency without taking extra time off.

“I always had very strong female role models, so it never occurred to me that I couldn’t do it,” says Dr. Percec, associate director of Plastic Surgery. She attended an all-girls school growing up, her mother was a scientist, and her undergraduate advisor at Princeton (a woman) ended up becoming the school’s president.

“I’m always excited by a challenge, and I just keep going. Not that it’s easy, but if you stop to think about it too much, you’ll scare yourself off,” Dr. Percec says.

Her love of science, art, and working with her hands naturally dovetailed into a career in plastic surgery, sculpting people’s faces and bodies. As a high school senior in Ohio, her first exposure to the field was during a six-week internship with the head of plastic surgery at the Cleveland Clinic.

She went on to Princeton University the next year, and during her spring break returned to the Cleveland Clinic. She then enrolled in an MD/PhD program at the University of Pennsylvania.

As she rotated through various medical specialties, she says she stayed open to the possibilities of each, but that going to plastic surgery “was like coming home. For me, it wasn’t necessarily that I was going to go into medicine. I was directly focused on plastic surgery from early on.