Still active in many sports, hand surgeon helps underserved regions

Leslie Dean grew up in the Chicago area, and she graduated from Bates in 1977 magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in chemistry. She was on the dean’s list all four years and was elected to the Bates Key, now part of the College Key.

A recipient of the Milton Lindholm Scholar-Athlete Award her senior year, she received letters in varsity field hockey and badminton and participated in women’s track and lacrosse. She served on the Athletic Advisory Council and was a member of the Lawrance Chemical Society.

Before medical school, Dean worked as a serologist at the Northern Illinois Police Crime Lab. She earned her M.D. degree in 1985 from the University of Chicago and served an internship with the University of Chicago Hospital. Before joining AFOC, she was affiliated with a medical practice in Atlanta, Ga.

Leslie is a hand surgeon with the Anchorage (Alaska) Fracture and Orthopedic Clinic, with a practice limited to hand, wrist and forearm. Her professional bio says that when she joined AFOC in 1995, she brought skills to the state that enabled injuries that previously required emergency trips to the lower 48 states to be treated locally. These services include “re-plantation of severed fingers and even the reconstruction of functional hands through the creation of fingers from transplanted toes.” Dean’s skills include microvascular reconstruction and reconnecting microscopic nerves and blood vessels. She treats numerous cases of hand and wrist trauma, hand deformities, carpal tunnel syndrome, and wrist pain.

Dean formerly was chair of orthopedics at Providence Alaska Medical Center, president of the Anchorage Medical Society, secretary and treasurer of the Alaska State Orthopedic Society, and affiliate professor/team physician for the University of Alaska at Anchorage.

In addition to her professional activities, Dean has volunteered for religious and social service organizations. In the 1990s she spent a week with Flying Doctors, which does medical missions in poverty-stricken areas of the United States, Central America, and the Caribbean.

In her free time Leslie participates in road– and mountain biking, kayaking, canoeing, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, snow machining, and competing in 25K cross-country ski events, women’s triathlons and charitable fund-raising runs and walks. She also is a volunteer for the Iditarod sled dog races as a starting line dog handler.

Leslie is happily married to Donald D. Hopwood, who is a superior court judge. They live in Anchorage, Alaska, where they enjoy University of Alaska at Anchorage hockey, as well as the performing arts at the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra.

For her devotion to academic excellence, dedication to the medical profession, and passion for lifelong physical activity and sport, we are honored to welcome Leslie Dean, Class of 1977, into the membership of the Bates Scholar-Athlete Society.