Michael Felix Freshwater

Michael Felix Freshwater, M.D. died on Oct. 1, 2016 from complications of metastatic prostate cancer. He was an internationally known plastic surgeon who practiced and taught in Miami since 1979. Felix, as he was known professionally, was born in New York City where he graduated from Stuyvesant High School and Brooklyn College where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received his Bachelor of Science degree magna cum laude and the Jonas Salk Scholarship with which he attended Yale School of Medicine. As a medical student, he began research on how to improve the sharing of surgical ideas, research which he would continue to explore throughout his career.

After leaving Yale he spent almost three years as a fellow in the division of plastic surgery at Johns Hopkins before he came to Miami for his plastic surgery residency under Ralph Millard, the renowned plastic surgeon, who revolutionized cleft lip surgery. Millard knew that Felix was interested in hand and microsurgery and Millard encouraged Felix to get further training at what was then the foremost center at the time, Jewish Hospital in Louisville Kentucky, which Felix did before he returned to Miami late in 1979 where he started practicing and joined the medical school faculty where he was a voluntary professor of surgery. That December Felix was thrust into the public eye when he operated on Frankie Scarborough, a then six-year-old boy who had been attacked by a pit bull dog and required emergency microsurgery followed by dozens of operations over the next few years. By 1984, Felix had treated several famous cases including a lady who had her arm ripped off in a laundromat and the world’s first forequarter reattachment. Felix realized that there was a need for an organized unit in South Florida that was devoted to the emergency care of hand and microsurgery patients, and Cedars Medical Center supported this project by establishing a program there that willingly accepted all patients regardless of their ability to pay. The unit thrived until after Cedars was sold to a for-profit corporation.

On a national level, Felix popularized the use of leeches for treating microsurgery patients who had circulatory problems, and by 1988 he was featured in a WTVJ segment that won an Emmy Award and in a 1989 Wall Street Journal article.

Throughout his career Felix was concerned about patient access to plastic surgery and the global shortage of plastic surgeons. For decades, he served as a consultant for a number of local clinics for the indigent. In the 1980s, he regularly travelled to South America to lecture and do pro bono surgery, but he realized that there was a better means of treating patients. He arranged for Latin American plastic surgeons to study under him in Miami at Cedars and continued this program for several years. Eventually he realized that his best means of educating other plastic surgeons was serving on the editorial boards of six international peer-reviewed journals published everywhere from the United States to India and by writing about the field that he loved. According to the National Library of Medicine, by the end of his career, he had published 160 scholarly articles.

Felix is survived by his wife Melodye Stokes, mother Mildred Freshwater, son David Freshwater, first cousins Valerie Mankoff and Alan Schoen, in-laws Mark and Debbie Stokes and niece and nephew Chelsea and Michael Stokes and many second cousins.

The family requests that in lieu of flowers donations be made to the University of Miami Plastic Surgery Resident Education, Kelly Kirkpatrick, Director Major Gifts U of M Miller School of Medicine. 1500 NW 12 Ave., Miami 33136, or to the Woman’s Cancer Association of the University of Miami Barton-Ravlin Chapter, 1350 W. Flagler St., Miami 33135.