Dr. Elie Schochet, best known for his Happy Hiney series at the Pride Center, has moved his practice back to Fort Lauderdale.
Schochet was forced to leave the area when he left Holy Cross hospital and decided to open a private practice.
“So, I really liked the hospital. I think it’s a wonderful hospital for the community, but the way they were running my office, they just weren’t letting me sort of build the kind of center I wanted to build,” he said. “So I quit.”
He opened up an office in Aventura until he was able to move his new practice back to the Fort Lauderdale area.
“When I opened there I knew the plan was always to get back here right away,” he said.
Most of his surgeries will now take place at Holy Cross.
Schochet is thrilled to be back in the heart of the gay community where he’s able to start seeing his old clients again. Now that it’s his own practice he’s also able to explore research opportunities.
“You know, we’re sitting on one of the largest over 40 gay male populations in the country, if not the world per capita,” he said. “And we have an opportunity to study patients over a long time.”
Schochet said he started doing anal cancer prevention in 2009 and has worked with thousands of patients.
“We probably have one of the largest experiences of the entire medical literature,” he noted. “So that’s something I was not able to do two years ago, and something which I really hope to do now — get a really good research agenda, off the ground. I was never really able to focus on that.”
He also hopes to relaunch the Happy Hiney series with the Pride Center.
Article can be found on South Florida Gay News