Description
Dr. Bernard Kopchinski served as a US Army Special Forces Medic and former attending surgeon at the US Army Institute of Surgical Research Burn Center here in San Antonio. Upon his retirement from the armed forces, Dr. Kopchinski was interested in continuing a career in medicine—specifically plastic surgery. He loves that he's able to use his experience to help San Antonio patients achieve their cosmetic goals in a safe, personalized way.
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I retired from the military in June 2012
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and started this practice
the day after I retired.
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We've been open
to this location ever since.
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As a young man, I was in the army.
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I was in the Special Forces
with the 10th group in Southern Germany.
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As a medical on the A-Team,
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I was responsible
for the health of the team members.
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At that time, I met a surgeon
who went to the military medical school,
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and he told me all about
how I could continue learning medicine
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and still remain in the military.
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It was at that point in time
I started looking into
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finish my college degree
and get to med school.
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During medical school,
I knew I wanted to be a surgeon,
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I met several surgeons
that really impressed me,
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and one of them was a plastic surgeon.
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I think the best part
about being a plastic surgeon
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is that you can do reconstruction,
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you can do cosmetic,
you can do burns, you can…
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There's no aspect of surgery
that a plastic surgeon cannot perform.
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The practice has a pretty simple motto:
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right patient, right time,
right operation.
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We will not do surgery on anybody unless
they meet those three requirements.
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My favorite part of working
with patients is getting to know them.
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That helps us get to understand
and get to know them a little bit better
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before we actually start talking about
what they desire for themselves.