Dr. Joshua Lampert’s mother played a big role in helping foster his dream of becoming a physician.
Adele Lynn Lampert was an award-winning interior designer who battled metastatic cancer for 12 years before she died in 2020. One of her final design projects: her son’s surgery center and office in Aventura, in northeast Miami-Dade County.
Lampert is certified with the American Board of Plastic Surgery and a clinical assistant professor at Florida International University’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.
He honors his mother every year,with an annual effort called the ALL for Moms surgery day on her birthday, May 21. Lampert had participated in charity surgical events in the past, including a couple of overseas pediatric plastic surgery missions.
“ As a surgeon, I could do the best face-lift I ever did, but she was most proud of those charity surgeries,” he said.
Around the same time that he lost his mother, Lampert received a social media message from a mother of two who was uninsured but needed work done on a painful, failed breast reconstruction.
“I thought it would be cool to give back to mothers, who are sometimes in a situation too, and a lot of times putting their children first in almost every way,” Lampert said.
So, Lampert and his team developed a charity program focused on giving free, reconstructive surgeries to mothers who are uninsured or underinsured and can’t afford to pay for medically necessary procedures.
Reconstructive surgery can be costly, a major barrier to people without comprehensive insurance coverage.
The doctor has seen several patients in need of breast implant removals after experiencing ongoing pain, for example. That kind of procedure can run an average of nearly $4,000, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. That’s not including anesthesia fees, medication and other related costs.
Lampert’s office is accepting applications for the charity surgery day. Applications are open through April 12 and preferences are given to South Florida residents.
In past charity days, Lampert has operated on women needing complicated breast reconstruction and with implants that required removal after causing long-term pain. One woman, he said, needed a scar revision surgery. She had undergone an emergency, life-saving cesarean section with her second son, following the death of her first son.
“It’s not, I need a fac-elift, I can’t afford it,” he said. “But I think most people get that.”
He’s also accepting applications from mothers and grandmothers with congenital deformities or who need cancer reconstruction, breast reductions and burn reconstructions, to name a few.
The surgeries are ambulatory, also called outpatient procedures, meaning they go home the same day. So, patients must demonstrate that they are healthy enough to undergo the operation. His team assesses their ability to do so with the American Society of Anesthesiologists risk classification system and only accept patients for the charity day with no medical problems or well-controlled medical problems.
Only so many surgeries can be performed by one team in a day. In years past, about three patients were seen on the charity day.
“ It's something we plan on doing every year,” Lampert said. “ But, we really have to pick what we can do in one day. So it does become challenging and … I would say it's never an easy decision.”
For more information on qualifications and to fill out the application, click here.
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