About Dr. Luis Villar
RENAISSANCE MAN
- TRAUMA SURGEON, GENERAL SURGEON, COSMETIC SURGERY, RECONSTRUCTIVE PLASTIC SURGEON
- ARTIST
- AVIATOR
- CRUISING AND RACING SAILOR
- WARBIRD RESTORATION MASTERCRAFTSMAN
- UNDERSEA MEDICAL SOCIETY/ SCUBA DIVER
- SKYDIVER
- SCHOLARSHIP ATHLETE/LACROSSE
EXTRA ORDINARY TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE
Dr. Villar is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and certified by the American Board of Plastic Reconstructive Surgery. He has eight years of surgical residency training rather than the usual five to seven. He is a fully trained trauma surgeon, general surgeon, and reconstructive plastic surgeon. He gained his surgery and plastic surgery training on the Harvard Surgical Service at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Nassau Medical Center in New York. He interned at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Unit when it opened in 1973 and did a Trauma fellowship at Boston City Hospital. His burn expertise was achieved at the Shriner's Burn Unit at MGH Boston. He has been in private practice since 1982 and is on staff at Martin Memorial Hospital, Cleveland Clinic.
For decades, Dr. Villar was secretly helping women who had been butchered or disfigured by incompetent surgeons. On behalf of a victim, his work was featured on True Hollywood Stories Investigates, Plastic Surgery Nightmares. This catapulted him to international recognition.
ARTIST
Dr. Villar has been a creative sculptor and artist since kindergarten. He used to sculpture his cleft lip patient’s deformities to study how best to repair them. Now he makes his hand painted Christmas cards every Christmas. These are inspired by Anne, a 30 yr old red head who died on the elevator with him straddled over her on the gurney as the doors opened into the Baltimore Hospital Shock Trauma Unit, first of its kind in the world in 1973. The awaiting team brought her back to life from certain death. To this day he gets a hand painted Christmas card from this talented artist that went on to have a daughter as beautiful as herself. “We are bonded for life, though I have not seen her since.”
by Anne, my inspiration
AVIATOR, "GREAT ADVENTURER"
Dr. Villar learned to fly during a Trauma Fellowship in Boston while he was learning to sail at Community Boating on the Charles river in preparation for a one year circumnavigation with with friends. He resumed his training in 1982 when he started private practice in Florida. He purchased a 1942 Stearman biplane in army colors and put an HMO NO logo on it to protest managed care.
He flew it 1200 miles each way over oceans and mountains to St. Croix two weeks after getting his license with fellow adventurer Clyde Dawson who accompanied him in a Waco UPF-7 biplane. It was a very very stupid thing to do. When you do something extremely stupid and you die, people say, “what an idiot, what a fool, what was he thinking?” But if you live, they say “what a great adventurer”
He flew the Stearman to summer film school in Rockport Maine for ten years. Monthly fly-ins from Luisiana to Key West rounded out his adventures until a tornado on the back end of Hurricane Wilma destroyed his hangar and aircraft. It took fifteen years to completely rebuild her and get her back in the air in original Navy colors.
CIRCUMNAVIGATED CARIBBEAN 6/79-6/81
Dr. Villar is one of this profession’s most highly trained and experienced surgeons. An innovator and master craftsman, his adventures extend beyond the operating room. In 1979 he and his partners Lynn Samuels, and Mitch Baumeister circumnavigated the Caribbean for one year in a 39 ft Allied Mistress Ketch with a $69 plastic sextant before GPS was available.
Dr. VILLAR AND SON ANDREW BUILDING WING
AVIATOR AND WAR BIRD RESTORATION MASTER CRAFTSMAN
Dr. Villar won first place at Sun N Fun, the countries second largest airshow next to Oshkosh, for Best Military Trainer. His WWII 1941 Navy N2S3 Stearman biplane underwent a ten year restoration after it was destroyed by a tornado on the back end of Hurricane Wilma in 2005. Teaching the next generations is a priority. Son Andrew, grandson Carter, Tonya Lynds and her twins, Morgan and Jordan became expert in fabrication, sewing and ironing wing tapes, etc. Morgan and Jordon went on to be national champions in Disk Golf.
NORTHWIND SURF CLUB 1964
Dr. Villar red hat and 13 ft board
UNDERSEA MEDICAL SOCIETY
Early chambers were walk in suitable for mass casualties
Now we have single chambers freeing up personel and allowing innovation.
LACROSSE SCHOLARSHIP
Dr. Villar received a full tuition scholarship for Lacrosse in the days of the wooden sticks. FDU Madison was 68th in the nation out of 74 teams the year before. Ten Long Island players were recruited and they jumped to 38th in the nation the next year. By senior year they were in the top 15 with ten all Americans!
Dr. Villar helped with St. Michael’s fledgling team and trained his son, Andrew as an attack man. His daughter Jillian played with distinction on St. Edwards undefeated team in Vero, had eleven scholarships but followed a boyfriend to Tempe, Arizona. The relationship soured in six months, and she returned to Stuart. St. Michaels asked her to start a girls Lacrosse team. She had an undefeated season even defeating St. Edwards. Many of her girls went on to college on Lacrosse scholarships. She meet another boy and followed him to Rollins College. They married and have 9 children.
