Dr. Dzifa Kpodzo Selected for SBAS Leadership Development Institute

Dzifa Kpodzo, MD, chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, is one of six surgeons selected for the next class of the Leadership and Faculty Development Institute Program of the Society of Black Academic Surgeons (SBAS).

The two-year program offers mentoring and leadership training, with the goal of increasing the number of minority faculty in academic surgery and ensuring their career progression by creating a network of leaders in the field.

Formed in 1987, SBAS’s mission is to improve health, advance science, and foster careers of African American and other underrepresented minority surgeons.

Dr. Kpodzo joined the Albany Med Health System in June. Together, she and surgeons from the Albany Medical Center and Saratoga Hospital campuses provide a full range of plastic and reconstructive surgery services, from aesthetic procedures that enhance appearance to complex surgeries that improve function impacted by congenital defects, developmental abnormalities, trauma, infection, tumors or disease.

Dr. Kpodzo completed a fellowship in aesthetic and oculoplastic surgery at Paces Plastic Surgery in Atlanta and was the first African American woman to graduate from Harvard’s Combined Plastic Surgery Residency Program. She earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a Master of Public Health, Health Policy Management from Harvard School of Public Health.