Timothy Miller M.D. ’63

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Timothy Miller is a tenured professor of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where he has spent nearly four decades training doctors and surgeons. Dr. Miller served as the chief of the Division from 2002-11. Miller has served on the boards of directors for the American Board of Plastic Surgery, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery and the Plastic Surgery Education Foundation. In addition, he served as director of the American Society of Plastic Surgery from 1991-97 and chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Medical Center from 1973-2006. Since 1973, Miller has maintained an active research laboratory at the Veterans Administration that is currently focused on the creation of new bone.

Miller has published more than 100 scholarly articles and written more than 40 textbook chapters. He also has published two novels including the 1992 medical thriller Practice to Deceive, a selection of the Literary Guild and a Doubleday Book of the Month.

Miller served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam from 1965-66, earning the Bronze Star and the Vietnam Special Forces Parachute Award. He continues to serve his country in his role as the Chief Surgeon of Operation Mend, a surgically humanitarian response to war and demonstration of his loyalty and dedication toward his fellow soldiers. Established in 2007, Operation Mend is a pioneering program that is a unique partnership between the Brooke Army Medical Center, a leading burn and rehabilitation center in San Antonio, Texas and the UCLA Health System. The purpose of this ground-breaking effort is to address the comprehensive needs of returning soldiers who have suffered severely disfiguring facial wounds in Iraq and Afghanistan. Miller himself performs the reconstructive plastic surgery for Operation Mend patients, and he has been very involved in efforts to raise the money needed to fund surgeries, each costing upwards of $500,000. To date, Miller and his team have performed 230 such surgeries. In recognition of his work with Operation Mend, Miller was named a 2010 Hero of the Year by People magazine, was honored by the US Marine Corp in a Barracks Ceremony in Washington, D.C. and has received extensive nationwide media coverage.

Miller has received many other honors and awards over the years. In addition to his military honors, he was named the inaugural recipient of the UCLA Medical Alumni Association Alumnus of the Year Award in 2011. He also received the Ralph Goldman Research Award in both 1999 and 1996. He was recognized by The American Society of Maxillofacial Surgeons for the Best Research Paper in Plastic Surgery in 1991. In 1971, he received the Pittsburgh Academy of Medicine Thomas Symington Award.

Miller is a member of the academic honor societies Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha. He has served on various committees at UCLA, including the Executive Committee of the Department of Surgery, the Operating Room Committee, the Chairman’s Committee and the Admissions Policy Committee to name a few. He earned his Doctorate of Medicine from UCLA.