University of California San Francisco

Patient Stories

Patient Story Dr. Lin
Patient: UCSF Center for Advanced 3D+ Technologies
Our doctors are harnessing the power of advanced 3D printing to improve all kinds of complex surgeries, from facial reconstruction to open-heart surgery to sports medicine. In this video, Dr. Alexander Lin, Co-director of our UCSF Center for Advanced 3D+ Technologies (CA3D+), describes using a 3D model of a young child's skull to prepare for a complex craniofacial repair. ...View Story
Scott Hansen Square photo
Patient: Gustavo Cabrera
The San Jose Mercury News reports on the remarkable recovery of Gustavo Cabrera from a potentially catastrophic injury to his right hand in 2013 sustained while at home in the Dominican Republic.Cabrera's injury threatened not only his baseball career, but the loss of function, if not the loss of the hand itself. A team comprised of Scott L. Hansen, M.D.(pictured right), Chief of Hand and Microvascular Surgery at UCSF, Charles Lee, M.D., Director of Microsurgery at St. Mary's Medical Center, and San Francisco Giants' chief surgeon Dr. Robert Murray, repaired the damage to Cabrera's hand and, despite seemingly long odds, Cabrera has been able to resume his baseball career. The gripping account descibing his injury, subsequent treatment ...View Story
Scott Hansen Square photo
Patient: Garrett La Fever
The Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at UCSF provides service to patients from literally head to toe. Surgeons have the technical expertise to perform a wide array of cosmetic procedures and also provide highly specialized surgical procedures for a host of other problems including craniofacial and cleft lip surgery, microvascular reconstruction, and treatment of complex wounds.For patients like Garrett La Fever, who lost his thumb in a woodworking accident, this expertise can mean all the difference. Using a novel technique, Dr. Scott Hansen collaborated with Dr. Charles Lee to replace Garrett's thumb- which is responsible for 40 percent of the function of the hand- with his big toe. The approach paid off. In the years since his successful ...View Story