Meet Dr. Gray
Meet Leonard Gray, MD, FACS
Bay Area Plastic Surgery has seen considerable success over the past twenty years, largely due to the vision, skill, and commitment to excellence of Dr. Leonard Gray, the practice’s owner, director, and board-certified plastic surgeon. Dr. Gray maintains mastery in breast augmentation, breast lifts, breast revision surgeries, tummy tucks, liposuction, and many other procedures of the breast, body, and face. Additionally, Dr. Gray offers minimally invasive cosmetic procedures like non-surgical facial rejuvenation, BodyTite, FaceTite, and more.
As the owner of a genuinely patient-centered practice, Dr. Gray strives to ensure that his patients enjoy the best office experience, are thoroughly educated on each procedure’s details, and receive outstanding surgical results through his meticulous attention to detail.
A Leader in the Field
Dr. Gray is renowned for his expertise, skill, and innovation in cosmetic breast surgeries. He often performs highly complex breast revision surgeries, yielding outcomes that always aim to exceed his patients’ expectations. When treating capsular contracture, Dr. Gray utilizes a specialized technique that lowers the recurrence rate to less than 1% among his patients. He is also quite skilled at various mastopexy (breast lift) techniques and is one of the few plastic surgeons who understands and performs the vertical mastopexy method. Dr. Gray invented the non-surgical laser breast lift (LazeLift) for great results with minimal downtime. He also patented the collagen-coated breast implant in 1983 while at Stanford University, an innovation that has significantly reduced contracture rates in breast augmentation patients and remains popular today.
Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, and Harvard Trained
Dr. Gray earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biochemistry and Master of Arts degree in Immunology at the University of California, Berkeley, completing his undergraduate studies with honors. Dr. Gray enjoyed studying among the renowned scholars at Berkeley and earned an award for the highest organic chemistry score in school history.
He then attended the University of California, Los Angeles Medical School, which was among the top three medical schools in the nation while he was there. During this time, he also studied at Stanford and Berkeley, earning another master’s degree in immunology from Berkeley. Upon graduating from UCLA, he received the prestigious and highly coveted AOA Research Award. Dr. Gray was one of only five medical students in the nation to earn this distinction.
Dr. Gray was then accepted into Harvard, where he trained in what is now the Deaconess/Beth Israel Hospital system. He served as the Chief Resident of the Harvard Deaconess Surgical Service from 1988 – 1989. His time at Harvard prepared him greatly for his future success as a surgeon.
Following his time at Harvard, Dr. Gray completed fellowships in hand and microsurgery in San Francisco with Dr. Harry Buncke, the Father of Microsurgery. He also finished a residency and fellowship in plastic surgery with a heavy emphasis on cosmetic plastic surgery. This program emphasized many of the procedures Dr. Gray offers at Bay Area Plastic Surgery, extensively preparing him in highly complex plastic surgery techniques.
Professional Societies
Dr. Gray is proud to be affiliated with the following associations:
- California Medical Association, Member
- San Francisco Medical Society, Member
- American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), Member
- American College of Surgeons (FACS), Member
- American Board of Plastic Surgery, Diplomat
- American Board of Surgery, Diplomat
San Francisco's Own
Dr. Gray has always practiced plastic surgery in San Francisco and is proud to call it his hometown. He was born and raised in the Richmond District of San Francisco, where he and his brother attended Town School for Boys and Lick Wilmerding for high school. Dr. Gray’s mother worked as an artist and owned an art supply and frame shop in the neighborhood, while his father worked in San Francisco as a practicing physician. Dr. Gray now lives in Marin County with his wife, Cherisse, his three younger children, and his two standard red poodles. Dr. Gray’s office is in the historic Sutter medical building, which overlooks the San Francisco Bay.
Professional Societies
Dr. Gray is proud to be affiliated with the following associations:
- California Medical Association, Member
- San Francisco Medical Society, Member
- American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), Member
- American College of Surgeons (FACS), Member
- American Board of Plastic Surgery, Diplomat
- American Board of Surgery, Diplomat
Q & A with Dr. Leonard Gray
My center is located on the 23rd floor of the historic 450 Sutter medical building, which has a gorgeous view of the San Francisco skyline and bay. It has a warm and inviting feel, almost like a living room space. There is a beautiful waiting area and several exam rooms, each with nice wood and various stone species. I also have an AAAASF operating room with preop and recovery rooms. It is a wonderful place to work on cases, and my patients love the incredible view. It is also AAAASF certified, so it is extremely safe and clean.
I love my work, interacting with my patients daily, thinking in 3 dimensions, and solving problems. I love the technical aspects and the manual dexterity required to accomplish the procedures. For me, I also like really getting good at stuff— I just want to run about 1 mile an hour faster every time I do something and get just a little bit better all the time. I love to expand the field, and plastic surgery, in particular, has developed quite a bit during my time. I do not think any of the procedures I do today are the same as when I started. There are whole fields that have opened up; the noninvasive things have completely progressed, and most surgeries are different and more advanced than when I started. It has been fun to help expand and perfect the field in the various procedures. Most of all, when patients are happy, I am happy, so it is an enjoyable, fun, and rewarding experience.
When I went to college at the University of California at Berkeley, it became clear that I was good at science. I was a lot better in science than anything else. I also realized that I did not want to be a person who worked in the lab all the time— I wanted to interact with people on a day-to-day basis, and that is when medicine started to look attractive to me. There was a combination of science and interacting with people, and I believed that each component would be rewarding. I also felt that it would feel great to help people and do something that looked fun. It became clear that my grades were quite good, and it would be possible to go to medical school. So, I applied and decided to go to UCLA, which at that time was the #3 rated medical school in the country. It was also a state school, which meant that it had relatively low tuition and was affordable.
Well, in the middle of medical school, I really did not know what I wanted to do. There was nothing that I really thought was fantastic. I knew I did not want to do general medicine, and I thought that maybe being an eye surgeon would be rewarding. So, I did a lot of research with the eye surgeons at Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA. I got involved with that group extensively, even traveling and doing genetic research on retinal disease at the Navajo Indian reservation in Tennessee. The only problem was that it was okay, but I did not really love it. I still did not know what I wanted to do at this point.
I went to a plastic surgery lecture believing that I would not particularly like it, but as it turned out, I actually did. It was a lecture on breast reconstruction that I just thought it was fascinating. So, I decided to change my advisor from the eye department to the plastic surgery department and chose Dr. Malcolm Lesavoy as my advisor. He was wonderful, and I also got to know the department chairman, Dr. Harvey Zarem, who was a great man. I did work with them both.
I have lived in Marin County for many years. Marin County is beautiful and close to the practice. I have five children; my two oldest daughters live in Los Angeles and New York, and then I have three younger children. I have two years old twins and a little baby who are all doing great. I have two large standard red poodles and they are great companions; they love to go on walks and are very friendly and they love the children, and I have had different interests over the years other than medicine and plastic surgery.
I have gone on a number of trips overseas to Guatemala and the Philippines to help children with cleft lip and palates, which has been very rewarding. Other than medicine, I have always liked to play basketball and still play on occasion. I am a master scuba diver and have been for many years. As a backpacker, I have climbed Mount Whitney more than once. These days I hike in Marin County and Fairmont. I also like to bike, ski, and cook. I especially like using the pellet smoker to make all sorts of things like pulled pork, ribs, brisket, roasts, and vegetables. In addition, I started a small avocado farm and also like to grow roses.