Dr. Larry Nichter

Dr. Larry Nichter is one of the most decorated plastic surgeons practicing in the United States today. He trained at Boston University (magna cum laude), Boston University School of Medicine (with honors, Alpha Omega Alpha), and completed graduate study in neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and MIT. His surgical training took him to UCLA for general surgery — where he served as Chief Resident — and to the University of Virginia for plastic and reconstructive surgery under Milton Edgerton, with additional fellowships in microvascular and hand surgery, craniofacial surgery, and burn care.

He is triple board-certified — by the American Board of Surgery, the American Board of Plastic Surgery, and with the Diplomate of Added Qualifications in Surgery of the Hand. He is a Fellow of both the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Since 1985 he has held academic appointments at the USC School of Medicine (progressing from Assistant Professor through a tenured Associate Professor to his current Clinical Professor role) and, since 2006, at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. In 2022 he was appointed Co-Director of the Post-Graduate Aesthetic Fellowship of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery — the specialty's own training pipeline for the next generation of aesthetic surgeons.

He co-founded Pacific Center for Plastic Surgery in Newport Beach with Dr. Jed Horowitz in 2000, where he practices today. He has been an affiliated surgeon at NCSS since our doors opened in 1996 — an original member of our medical staff.

In 1999, Dr. Nichter founded what is today Mission Plasticos — a humanitarian organization dedicated to training plastic surgeons around the world in reconstructive techniques for patients who would otherwise never receive them: burns, congenital deformities, trauma, breast reconstruction, hand reconstruction.

He has personally led or served as senior surgeon on 115 overseas surgical missions across 17 countries — in Central America, South America, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Cuba, and the South Pacific. He was the trip leader featured in the 1997 Academy Award-winning documentary A Story of Healing, and again in the 2022 PBS documentary Transformando Vidas en el Chaco.

In 2024, the American Society for Plastic Surgery and the Plastic Surgery Foundation awarded him the Noordhoff Humanitarian Award — the specialty's highest recognition for humanitarian work.

Developed here.

Three distinctive techniques Dr. Nichter has developed with his partner Dr. Jed Horowitz at Pacific Center for Plastic Surgery.

Dr. Nichter's humanitarian work is not a separate chapter from his clinical practice — it is the same chapter, written in different geographies. The techniques he has refined on 115 overseas missions are the same techniques he brings to Newport Beach. The standard of care he demands in a field hospital in Central America is the same standard he demands at NCSS.

That consistency is not incidental. It is the product of a surgeon who has never treated his craft as a local or commercial enterprise. His academic appointments, his humanitarian leadership, and his clinical practice in Newport Beach are expressions of the same commitment — to plastic surgery practiced at its highest level, wherever the patient happens to be.

"Dr. Nichter is a true genius. He couples that with a real passion to help others. You can't help but admire him."

Dr. Nichter's practice spans the full range of aesthetic and reconstructive plastic surgery, with signature techniques in breast and facial work.

Consultations with Dr. Nichter can be scheduled through Pacific Center for Plastic Surgery, or coordinated through the NCSS clinical team.

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