Medical school names plastic surgery chair

Dr. Michael W. Neumeister has been named chair of the plastic surgery division at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine effective July 1. He continues as director of the plastic surgery residency program and the microsurgery research laboratory at SIU and of the wound care center at Memorial Medical Center.

A professor of plastic surgery, Neumeister joined the SIU faculty in 1997, specializing in hand surgery and microsurgery. He replaces Dr. Elvin G. Zook, professor of plastic surgery, who will be stepping down as division chair after 33 years. Zook will continue to see patients and perform surgery as a member of SIU Physicians & Surgeons.

Before joining SIU, Neumeister served a fellowship in hand and microsurgery at SIU's Plastic Surgery Institute in 1997, and a microsurgery fellowship at Harvard University's Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston in 1996. He completed his plastic surgery residency at Manitoba University in Winnipeg in 1996 and his general surgery residency at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1993. Neumeister received his medical degree from the University of Toronto (1988) and bachelor's in physiology/pharmacology from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario in 1984.

Neumeister's research interests include tissue engineering, the role of stem cells in reconstruction, ischemia reperfusion, peripheral nerve and burn modulation.

A native of Vancouver, British Columbia, Neumeister grew up in Toronto, Ontario. Neumeister and his wife, Nadine, are the parents of three daughters.