Dr. Curtis Crane is a board-certified plastic surgeon who has a very unique background: he is one of the world’s only surgeons who is trained as both a plastic surgeon and reconstructive urologist with fellowship training in transgender surgery. With this combination of specialties, Dr. Crane is uniquely qualified to treat patients requiring major genitourinary reconstruction, such as in female to male and male to female gender confirmation surgery.
Dr. Crane graduated magna cum laude with a degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, one of the nation’s most rigorous engineering programs. He co-oped at DePuy Orthopedics making hip implants and became very interested in medicine. He chose to continue his education at the University of Iowa College of Medicine. Upon completion, he was accepted to the prestigious Dartmouth Hitchcock Urology program in Lebanon, New Hampshire, where he completed a six-year residency.
Because of his interest in complicated urologic surgery, Dr. Crane pursued a fellowship in trauma and reconstructive urology at Detroit Receiving Hospital with the distinguished Dr. Richard Santucci. This was followed by a full three-year residency in plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas.
Dr. Crane traveled to Europe to complete a fellowship specific to transgender surgery. He has worked extensively with Dr. Miroslav Djordjevic in Belgrade, Serbia, Dr. Preecha’s team in Bangkok, Thailand, and with Dr. Monstrey in Ghent, Belgium.
After completing more than 10 years of post medical school surgical training in urology, reconstructive urology, plastic surgery and transgender surgery, Dr. Crane joined the world renowned Dr. Michael Brownstein in San Francisco to form Brownstein & Crane Surgical Services. Dr. Brownstein retired in January 2013, after 35 years of serving the transgender community. During this time he performed thousands of FTM Top Surgery cases, perfecting his surgical technique and ultimately, passed this knowledge on to Dr. Curtis Crane, the only surgeon he has ever trained specifically in this technique.
Dr. Crane expanded the surgical offerings of Brownstein & Crane to include bottom surgery procedures, assembling the most highly respected and extensively trained board-certified surgeons across multiple specialities, including General Surgery, Female Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Urology, Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery and Craniofacial Surgery.
Dr. Crane performs Top Surgery, Metoidioplasty, Phalloplasty, Breast Augmentation, Orchiectomy, Vaginoplasty and Vulvoplasty.
Brownstein & Crane Surgical Services was re-named the Crane Center for Transgender Surgery in 2019.
Dr. Crane practices exclusively with the Crane Center for Transgender Surgery in Austin, Texas. Dr. Crane is a member of WPATH.
“After initially meeting some members of the trans community, I was immediately drawn to them. Gender dysphoria challenges the basic pretenses that the medical community assumes to understand about chromosomal influence on gender. It takes a courageous group of individuals to tell the world that XX does not always result in a female and XY male. It is yet another example that the world cannot compartmentalize its citizens.”
