He attended medical school on a military scholarship, and was sent to Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia for his internship. He was then selected for the prestigious Navy Flight Surgery program and was sent to Pensacola, Florida for flight training and flight medicine. After earning his wings, he was transferred to Key West, Florida with VF-45, a Navy Top Gun squadron where he flew F-16s, A-4s and F-5 aircraft and was instrumental in the Key West base search and rescue operations. He then was selected for Dermatology Residency at National Naval Medical Center which he completed and became Board Certified in Dermatology in the fall of 1996.
