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Branko Bojovic, M.D., Chief of Plastic, Reconstructive and Laser Surgery:
I am the chief of plastic, reconstructive and laser surgery here at Shriners Children’s Boston. When I was recruited back and given the opportunity to put together a job description that would have probably fit my ideal sort of criteria, this really hit all of those things, and so I jumped at it. My background is craniofacial surgery training after I finished my plastic surgical training. So that area of expertise is certainly near and dear to me. My training started in general surgery, completing a full general surgery residence. In my time of training, it was more popular for that to be a prerequisite and going into plastic surgery than let's say, going into plastic surgery straight out of medical school as it is now. I rotated here as a resident and so I got obviously a firsthand experience here to see the bread and butter techniques of plastic surgery that we were able to learn and use to this day. And so for me personally, obviously, there's a special place for me. Being able to come in and see numbers of different problems every day. I think, for me keeps it very interesting in the sense that many practices will focus on just doing one thing and doing that very, very well and I think that's great. But we can do a lot of things very, very well and I find that very challenging, but also stimulates you on a daily basis in terms of what we see. A lot of the things that we see, unfortunately, are due to not only burn injuries, but also traumatic scars, lacerations, dog bites unfortunately, tend to be a large part of what we see. With our burn experience and learning on how to manage burn scars, we've actually been able to apply that knowledge in terms of how to manage traumatic scars. Scars in and of themselves are complex and the way in which we manage those today, I would say, is probably state of the art when we look at all of the institutions that we are on par with, not only in the United States, but in the world. And in fact, some of the laser technology that we employ was actually developed here within, you know, a few hundred square feet of the hospital. So it's a very proud, I think, legacy that we have here, taking that technology and using it the way we do. You know, it's an infectious environment here in terms of everybody really enjoying what they do. The kids are fantastic, the families are wonderful, but we really provide a service that I think is very necessary in many, in many cases. And it's a special place to provide that to patients in need.
