March 2020 – Beyond Plastic MD

A recent article in Lake Healthy Living magazine (A Healthy Debate About Vaccines, September 2019) suggested that there is a debate about childhood vaccination. The article was, in my opinion, a well-intentioned but misguided effort that misrepresented the issue as a real debate. This is my response, as a physician, father, and grandfather.

If there is a sacred maxim in medicine, it is this, “Primum non nocere”. It means, “above all else, do no harm”. The reality is that doctors harm patients all the time. Not knowingly, not on purpose, and certainly not out of evil intent. It is an inescapable fact that the art and science of medicine are no more or less perfect than any other human endeavor.

A common thread throughout the course of human history had been the presence of illness and disease. Parallel to this has been the constant striving to relieve the suffering derived from these, beginning with the earliest healer or “medicine man” invoking the spirits he perceived and using those plants and animals available to him, progressing to the physician of today armed with the most advanced tools science can provide.

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Meet Dr. Rick Bosshardt

Dr. Bosshardt attended the Leonard Miller School of Medicine of the University of Miami, graduating in 1978. He completed a general surgery residency at the United States Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. His residency term was interrupted from 1979-80 when he served as medical officer aboard the USS Wabash and was deployed to the Western Pacific with an aircraft carrier task force. During that year, the Wabash was involved in the rescue of Vietnamese boat people and was part of operations to end the Iranian hostage crisis in 1980. The USS Wabash crew received several decorations for this deployment, including the Meritorious Unit Commendation. Upon completion of his training, Dr. Bosshardt served as a general surgeon at the United States Naval Hospital in Okinawa, Japan from 1984-87. During this time, he obtained his board certification from the American Board of Surgery. While in Okinawa, Dr. Bosshardt applied, and was accepted, for residency training in plastic surgery under world-renowned plastic surgeon, D. Ralph Millard, Jr., M.D., at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center in Miami, Florida. He was honorably discharged from the Navy with the rank of Commander in 1987 and completed his plastic surgery training in Miami from 1987-89. Dr. Bosshardt arrived in Lake County in July of 1989 as the first plastic surgeon in the county. He obtained lifetime certification by the American Board of Plastic Surgery in 1991. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Since starting in private practice, Dr. Bosshardt has participated regularly in overseas medical missions to provide reconstructive surgery to children with cleft lip, cleft palate. and other problems. His travels have taken him to the Philippines, Guatemala, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, the West Bank, and Mexico. Dr. Bosshardt performs both cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery in his practice, which has grown to two surgeons working out of a modern facility that houses the only state licensed private surgical suite in Central Florida dedicated exclusively to plastic surgery. He has privileges at Advent Health Waterman and University of Florida Leesburg Hospital.