Education
Doctor Buncke attended in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and earned his medical degree from the New York Medical College in 1951.
Doctor Buncke attended in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and earned his medical degree from the New York Medical College in 1951.
He is a past president of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, the International Society of Reconstructive Microsurgery, and the American Association of Plastic Surgery. He served as a clinical professor of surgery at both Stanford University and the University of California - San Francisco. He was the author of 15 movies and television tapes, four surgical textbooks, and more than 400 peer-reviewed publications.
Buncke"s work began in a laboratory which he set up in his garage, using instruments and sutures he developed.
In 1964, he reported a rabbit ear replantation to the Plastic Surgery Research Council Meeting in Kansas City, Kansas. In 1966, Buncke and colleagues reported the transplantation of a monkey great toe to hand using microsurgery, a second landmark that ushered in an era where replantation of amputated digits and extremities would become widely performed.
With Doctor Donald McLean, Buncke performed the first successful microvascular transplant using omentum to fill a large scalp defect In 1969. In 1970, Buncke founded the Buncke Clinic at the Davies Medical Center in San Francisco, California.