Background
Varaztad Kazanjian was born in Erzincan, Ottoman Empire on March 18, 1879.
Varaztad Kazanjian was born in Erzincan, Ottoman Empire on March 18, 1879.
He graduated from Harvard School of Dental Medicine in 1905.
He served as professor of oral surgery from 1922–1939 and he was the first to hold the title of Professor of plastic surgery at Harvard Medical School. He also co-authored the first concise book on plastic surgery. Doctor Kazanjian"s brother"s daughter was actress and television celebrity Arlene Francis (Kazanjian-Gabel).
Thereafter, he moved to Samsun to live with his older half-brother.
In an attempt to escape the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, he left to the United States in October 1895 and settled in Worcester, Massachusetts, and took a job in the local wire factory. lieutenant was at the mill that Doctor Kazanjian first displayed the natural dexterity that would serve him well in the field of plastic surgery.
There he began to treat some of the worst injuries suffered in trench war-fare - jaws, noses, cheeks and skulls shattered by bullets and grenades. He was subsequently promoted to the rank of major in June 1916.
Doctor Kazanjian was Professor of Clinical Oral Surgery at Harvard from 1922 to 1941 when he was named Harvard"s first Professor of Plastic Surgery.
In addition, Doctor Kazanjian was past President of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons, the American Society of Maxillofacial Surgery, and the New England Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. He was also a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology, and the American College of Dentists, and a Diplomat of the American Board of Plastic Surgery. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons in London in 1966 and of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow in 1967.
He was also an honorary member of the Massachusetts Dental Society, the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and of the Academy of Oral Surgery.