Dr. Dennis Shun Jen Kao, MD

Dennis Kao, M.D., is Assistant Professor of Plastic Surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center and a key member in the Departments Hand Surgery Program. He was born in Taiwan and finished elementary school there before immigrating to western Canada (Edmonton, Alberta). After completing high school, his family immigrated to Seattle, Washington. He completed his undergraduate education at the University of Washington, where he graduated summa cum laude. He earned his medical degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Dr. Kao completed a residency in plastic surgery and a hand fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. He then pursued a microsurgery fellowship at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taiwan, where complex surgeries, such as finger replantation, as well as finger replacement using the patients own toe, are performed routinely. Dr. Kao has presented his research at medical conferences throughout the United States. His research has …been published in numerous peer-reviewed medical journals, including Hand, Journal of Hand Surgery, and Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. He is also the co-author of a chapter on obstetric brachial plexus injuries in the second edition of Pearls of Wisdom: Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery Board Review. Dr. Kao is a member of the Dallas County Medical Society, the Texas Medical Association, and the American Society for Surgery of the Hand.