Robert Anderson

Fort Worth and Weatherford Plastic Surgery

Robert G. Anderson’s devotion to health care transcends the operating room. Whether serving as medical missionary in the Fiji Islands or training local surgeons and teaching at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, the plastic surgeon works tirelessly to improve health care worldwide. “Medicine is still the best profession with the ultimate reward of being able to help others and give back some of the blessings you have received,” says Anderson, medical director of the Fort Worth and Weatherford Plastic Surgery centers. Though trained and board certified in both plastic surgery and otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, the Fort Worth physician focuses on plastic surgery – namely, cosmetic plastic surgery, melanomas and reconstruction after-cancer surgery. Though based in Fort Worth, Anderson’s global history reveals a desire to help those in other cultures. In addition to his Fiji endeavors, he has taken part in medical missions to Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras working with surgical groups and cleft lip-palate teams. As a member of both the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Anderson is committed to patient education and advancing plastic surgery. He spent more than five years as a full-time faculty member in the Department of Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas. Since 1987, he has been a member of the editorial board of Selected Readings in Plastic Surgery, published by Selected Readings in Plastic Surgery Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to education in the field of plastic surgery. Anderson often trades scalpel for pen, having penned Monographs on Melanomas and Facial Nerve Surgery as well as numerous other scientific articles and book chapters. His talents have not gone unnoticed; in 2009, Forbes magazine named him as among the nation’s Top Ten Reconstructive and Cosmetic Surgeons. After receiving a bachelor of science degree from the University of Texas at El Paso, Anderson completed his medical education at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. Anderson said he is grateful for his position. “With my love of science and my desire to help, medicine was a natural profession. I honestly can’t see myself doing anything other than being a physician.”     What drew you to the health care field? Even as a child, I felt blessed to be born in live in America. I wanted to return the blessing and give back in some way. Who is your biggest inspiration? Those I admire the most are lifelong medical missionaries. Their living conditions and personal, family and financial sacrifices are, at time, hard to imagine. These people are the real health care heroes. What is your advice for people getting into the health care field? My advice is the same advice that was given to me many years ago: don’t worry about where medicine in going; it’s always going somewhere, but there will always be patients to treat. If you love what you are doing, it will never be a job. – A. Lee Graham