He received his medical degree, general surgery training, and plastic surgery residency at the University of Sarajevo. Trained by Marko Godina in Ljubljana, he continued Dr. Godina’s reconstructive philosophy and helped advance microsurgical reconstruction through innovative functional free tissue transfer techniques. During his residency, he also trained at several institutions in the United States.
In 1998, he received the International Scholarship of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and spent six months at Harvard University in Boston. He later received the Godina Travel Award (2003) and delivered the Godina Memorial Lecture (2004) for the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery.
Since 1992, he has practiced as a Consultant at Department of Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery in Innsbruck, Austria. In 1997, he was appointed Professor at the Medical University of Innsbruck. From 2003 to 2024, he served as Head of the Department of Plastic, Reconstructive, Hand and Burn Surgery at Munich Clinic Bogenhausen, affiliated with the Technical University of Munich. Since February 2024, he has been Head of the Department of Plastic, Aesthetic, Reconstructive and Hand Surgery at International Medical Centre Priora. Croatia
He has authored more than 200 scientific publications and over 30 book chapters, and is an internationally recognized lecturer in plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery. His honors include:
- Marko Godina Memorial Lecture (2004)
- Ole M. Ugland Lecture, Oslo (2007)
- Best Invited Speaker Award, SECPRE Congress, Palma de Mallorca (2012)
- Mercian S&T Microsurgery Lecture, British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (2017)
- Gillies Lecture, BAPRAS Summer Scientific Meeting, Bournemouth (2019)
- Skoog Lecture, Uppsala, Sweden (2022)
- Fu-Chan Wei Lectureship, XIII Congress of the World Society of Reconstructive Microsurgery, Barcelona (2025)
- Dieffenbach Medal and Lecture, Leipzig (2025)
He also served as President of the European Association of Plastic Surgeons from 2019 to 2021 and has been Visiting Professor at leading institutions including Yale University, Georgetown University, Kleinert Kutz Hand Care Center, and Uppsala University.
