Many families have traveled from all over the world to see Terzis, who has restored smiles to paralyzed faces, provided symmetry where there was distortion and enabled children like Charles to reach for the stars with both arms since 1978 when she began practicing medicine.
An internationally known plastic and reconstructive surgeon, she specializes in peripheral nerve injuries, facial reanimation and facial rejuvenation, and functional restoration after brachial plexus injuries. Today, she is director of the Microsurgical Program at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) and a professor in the school’s Department of Surgery, Division of Plastic Surgery. EVMS is also home to the Microsurgical Research Center, a multifunctional clinical and research laboratory that has been a pioneer in reconstructive microsurgery since 1981.
A pioneer herself, Terzis was a founding member of the International Institute of Reconstructive Microsurgery (IIRM) that helps paralyzed children and adults, trains surgeons in the latest techniques (498 surgeons from around the world have been trained), raises funds for the marathon surgeries (they last from 15 to 24 hours) and educates the medical community and the public.
She is also the author of six textbooks, and many manuscripts and peer reviewed articles in the field of reconstructive microsurgery, and has been invited to speak and teach at more than 200 academic institutions around the world. She has received numerous awards including the Gold Medal in Surgery from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the Emanuel Kaplan Award for the best anatomical paper from the American Society for Surgery of the Hand.
But for Terzis, Charles and thousands of other healed patients like him are the sweetest reward of a distinguished medical career focused on pushing the frontiers of reconstructive microsurgery.
“The most challenging aspect of my career had been facing problems with no previous clinical solutions, and doing the necessary research and investigations until a solution is found that could restore function to paralyzed faces or upper and lower extremities,” she says.
Much of that pioneering research has been done in the area of extremity nerve reconstruction. Although many believe that the prognosis for such surgery is poor, Terzis has had much success using techniques she introduced, including use of vascularized nerve grafts and vascularized fascia flaps to enhance blood supply and facilitate regeneration.
Terzis, a native of Greece, was also a pioneer at Albright and as a woman in her early medical career. One of Albright’s first international students, she chose Albright because of its excellent reputation as a pre-med school, and because she had friends and family in Lancaster and Philadelphia.
“My favorite class was ‘Comparative Anatomy’ and my favorite professor was Dr. Marcus Green,” says Terzis, who rec-
(top) A young patient, born in 1999, suffers from right obstetrical brachial plexus palsy. (bottom) The patient, shown here- in a post-op photo with Terzis in 2002, was successfully operated on in July 1999.
eived the Best Pre-med Student Award when she graduated from Albright. “I was a permanent fixture in the ‘Comparative Anatomy’ lab. On weekends, I was working on an Honor’s Research Project under Professor Green that had to do with Wallerian degeneration and regeneration in the frog sciatic nerve model.”
"The most challenging part of my career - facing problems with no previous solutions and doing the necessary research until a solution is found." - Dr. Julia Terzis
After graduating from Albright, Terzis became the first foreign student at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, where she received her doctor of medicine degree. To earn extra money, she prepared anatomical and histological specimens for the Anatomy Department. At the end of her first year in medical school, she was honored with a Gold Medal in Anatomy for best performance among her class of 200 students.
But it was during her first surgical rotation that she discovered her talent for surgery.
In 1970, she began general surgical training as an intern at Royal Victoria Hospital of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. “Due to the large Greek population in Montreal, in addition to my surgical duties, I was often called by the Emergency Department to participate in the care of Greek patients, as they all wanted the ‘Greek lady doctor,’” Terzis recalls.
To complicate matters, four months into her internship, Terzis discovered she was pregnant. At the time, this was not interpreted as good news by the chief of general surgery, she recalls.
“I promised that he would not even feel
a difference in my overall performance, and
despite my collaborative research work, my
labor-intensive surgical duties, and my every
other night on-call schedule, I managed to
have my baby, Lara, without taking a day off,”
says Terzis. “Lara was born on June 20, 1971,
on a Friday night, and I was back in the operating
room the following week. I am very grateful
that my mother, Athina Kallipolitou, a widow,
was able to come to Montreal and take care
of my newborn baby, so I would not leave my
surgical rotations uncovered.”
While working on her doctorate at McGill University, Montreal, Terzis received the first grant award she applied for—$36,000 Canadian dollars from the Medical Research Council of Canada to research the electrophysiological properties of skin graft reinnervation.
Her related doctoral thesis, “Functional Aspects of Reinnervation of Free Skin Grafts,” was published in 1976 and received first prize in the Essay Contest of the Education Foundation of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and the James Barrett Brown Award for the most significant contribution published in plastic surgery that year.
In 2004, Terzis decided to end her clinical
practice by 2006 so she could focus on
humanitarian missions and write about her
clinical work. Her office sent letters to nearly
6,000 patients informing them of this decision
and urging them to contact her if they
had any questions, and every three months for
two years she held free clinics for her patients
seeking advice or referrals.
As Terzis continues her goal of improving
the results and prognosis in patients with
devastating nerve injuries, she reflects on
her long and successful career as a pioneer in
her field. “The most satisfying aspect of my
career,” says Terzis, “is motivating and promoting
young physicians for a challenging career in
reconstructive microsurgery.”
Terzis visited Albright in October 2007 and spent time talking to science students about her career and the field of reconstructive microsurgery.
Healed patients are the sweetest reward of a distinguished medical career