Meet Dr. Jane Petro, one of our Sept. 12 honorees

 Jane, an Erie native, is the daughter of William I. Arbuckle II and Virginia Douglass Arbuckle, a prominent Erie family with deep roots in the community.

Jane went on to become a trailblazer in medicine, building a remarkable career as a plastic surgeon, educator and historian. After earning her medical degree from Penn State she became the first woman to complete a plastic surgery residency at Penn State’s Hershey Medical Center in 1978. 

Her career was filled with groundbreaking achievements, including performing Pennsylvania’s first microsurgical hand reattachment. She later became the first woman professor of surgery at New York Medical College, where she served for nearly three decades and held leadership positions in microsurgery, plastic surgery and burn care.

But Dr. Petro’s impact extends far beyond the operating room. She volunteered to treat children with cleft lip and palate, advocated for HIV-positive patients during the AIDS crisis and participated in medical missions serving underserved communities around the world.

She has authored two books and more than 70 peer-reviewed papers.

Today, she has embarked on a second career as a medical historian, researching the often-overlooked contributions of female physicians in the 19th century.