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I limit my practice to diseases and surgery of the hand and
reconstructive plastic surgery. I no longer do any cosmetic surgery.
In addition to practicing, I am actively involved in teaching others locally,
nationally and internationally. I am a Voluntary Professor of Surgery at the
University of Miami and have taught other surgeons in the United States and
Latin America. I review and publish works in peer-reviewed journals and write a
bimonthly "Letter from America" for the Journal of Plastic
Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery. I serve on the editorial board of
peer-review journals both nationally and internationally.
I was thrust into the public spotlight shortly after I began practicing in 1979
when I first treated a six-year-old boy who would become South Florida's first
famous pit bull victim. The child's scalp and face were torn off. I performed
microsurgery to reattach the child's scalp, and then did dozens of operations
over the next 7 years to rebuild the boy's face.
Two years later, I was featured in an article in The Miami Herald about his
treatment at Miami Children's Hospital of a young boy who had been abandoned in
Colombia after having received severe facial and hand burns. Subsequently, The
Miami Herald nominated this article for the Pulitzer Prize. Since then the
child has grown up and gotten married.
I returned to the headlines in August 1984. First, Dr. William Bacon and I
treated a woman who had her arm ripped off in a Laundromat, and for their
efforts we received a "Special Salute" from The Miami Herald. Three
weeks later, I led a team that performed the world's first successful
forequarter reattachment for which I received a Letter of Commendation from
then Governor Bob Graham.
The South Florida "Trauma Crisis" of the mid-1980's led me to found
the Cedars Hand & Microsurgery Unit in January 1985. This was the first
trauma unit of its type in South Florida dedicated to treating patients
requiring hand surgery and microsurgery without regard for their ability to
pay. Montage, the public service show of WTVJ, the local NBC television
station, won an Emmy Award for a segment called "A Second Chance"
that featured my work and included actual footage of me doing reattachment
surgery.
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