Charles H. Thorne, MD, is originally from California. He received his B.A. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry in 1974 from Yale University where he also played baseball and hockey. After receiving his undergraduate degree, Dr. Thorne served for two years in the Peace Corps in Ghana, West Africa, where he taught science at all levels of the Ghanaian educational system. After returning from Africa, Dr. Thorne attended medical school at the UCLA School of Medicine where he spent an additional year pursuing a fellowship in Pathology and performing research in Immunology before receiving his MD degree in 1981. He then returned to the East coast where he completed a 5 year residency in General Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Dr. Thorne then took a residency in Plastic Surgery at the Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery at the NYU Medical Center from 1986-1988 followed by a final year of additional training in Craniofacial Surgery, 1988-1989, also at NYU.

Dr. Thorne joined the plastic surgery faculty at NYU and opened his private practice in 1989. He served as Chief of Plastic Surgery at the Bellevue Hospital for 10 years and as Program Director of the NYU Plastic Surgery Residency for 10 years. Dr. Thorne is Chairman of the Department of Plastic Surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital and Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital. Dr. Thorne has an international reputation for cosmetic surgery and for several areas within pediatric plastic surgery including ear reconstruction/otoplasty, giant congenital nevi and facial deformities.

Dr. Thorne has spent over 30 years performing, teaching and writing about Plastic Surgery. Dr. Thorne has published 50 articles and 23 book chapters and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Grabb and Smith Plastic Surgery textbook, the most important single-volume textbook in all of plastic surgery. He has served as the Cosmetic Surgery Section editor for the Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and is a member of numerous national and international societies in plastic surgery.