Author name: Joseph Rosado MD
Dr Joseph Rosado, MD is one of the world’s most respected medical authorities on cannabis as plant-based medicine. With over four decades of experience as a healthcare professional, he’s built a career anchored in family tradition and driven by a desire to help his patients and community. Dr. Rosado credits his father, Joseph Rosado Jr, an x-ray technician training to become a physician’s assistant before his untimely death in 1973. Losing his father spurred Dr. Rosado to start working at a young age to help support his family. He trained as a certified nurse’s assistant, then known as an orderly, and began working in the medical field in 1978 at age 16.
After high school, Dr. Rosado trained as an emergency medical technician, paramedic, and catheterization laboratory technician while working his way through college. A major car accident led Dr. Rosado to the field of chiropractic. After a chiropractor alleviated his agonizing back pain in just a few weeks of care, Dr. Rosado decided to explore the complementary medicine system. As a chiropractor, Dr. Rosado dedicated his practice to helping underserved communities, particularly those for whom English was a second language, ensuring that each patient received the highest quality of care that he could provide. Much more than a practitioner, Dr. Rosado became a friend, and for many, their only healthcare provider. Dr. Rosado’s decision to become a medical doctor was inspired by one such patient, who called in a frantic state when his daughter suffered a series of non-stop epileptic seizures. Distraught, the father sought Dr. Rosado’s support to save her life. Dr. Rosado provided critical advice to stabilize the girl, and then accompanied her family to the emergency room, where he translated for her terrified parents. The experience helped Dr. Rosado understand both the necessity of bilingual doctors and his own calling in medicine.
At the age of 35, Dr. Rosado entered medical school, quickly distinguishing him as a top student, while working his way through school as a husband and father. In medical school, he studied marijuana and determined that potential health and wellness benefits could be extracted from the plant. As a student and newly certified physician, Dr. Rosado worked throughout the Latin American Diaspora, setting up a clinic in Costa Rica, serving as a team doctor for the country’s Olympic teams and hotel concierge physician in the Dominican Republic, among other roles.
Family obligations brought Dr. Rosado back to the United States, where he leveraged his years of healthcare experience, rapidly rising to the top of Florida’s public health community as a physician, clinic and hospital director, and director of the communicable disease division/epidemiology and immunization departments for St. Johns County. In early 2011, while being the clinic and lab director at Avanti Wellness a community mental health center, he became certified to prescribe Suboxone for the patients that were dependent/addicted to opiates.
In 2014, Dr. Rosado added his considerable professional expertise to the frontlines of Florida’s push for medical marijuana. One of the state’s first doctors advocating for medical cannabis, in 2016, Dr. Rosado also had the distinction of being the first Central Florida physician to recommend medical marijuana for an adult patient, as well as the first to recommend it for a patient under the age of 18.
Presently, Dr. Rosado is the medical director for Family Health Source a Federally Qualified Health Center in Volusia County, a part-time provider for FL Doc MJ, the president and CEO of International Medical Consultants, the Medical Director for Minorities 4 Medical Marijuana and Chief Medical Officer for marijuanadoctors.com; on the scientific board of advisers for Medical Extractos in Medellin, Colombia and Brand Ambassador for Hyalolex, Herbo and Holief, brands under the Life Sciences branch of India Globalization Capital, Inc. (IGC, Inc-US).
As a clinician he has worked with thousands of patients, from toddlers to the elderly, recommending medical cannabis and managing treatment.
Dr. Rosado remains an outspoken advocate and highly sought-after speaker and educator with global impact, lecturing throughout the United States and abroad in Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, Fiji, Thailand and a host of other countries. He’s appeared in a slew of national and local media outlets, including ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX News, Telemundo, Univision, Rolling Stone and The New York Times.
A published author, Dr. Rosado has written multiple articles for medical journals, as well as the bestselling book “Hope and Healing-A Case for Cannabis”
In August 2019, he received the Physician of the Year Award at the Healthcare Achievement Awards sponsored by the Volusia County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and in December 2019, he was named one of 65 Outstanding Black & Hispanic Men Leading in Cannabis by The WeedHead & Co.
In June 2020, he was named one of 20 Outstanding Black and Latinx Men Leading Change in Cannabis by Green Entrepreneur.
Dr. Rosado holds degrees in clinical nutrition and chiropractic medicine from Life College in Marietta, GA, a medical degree from Universidad Central del Este, in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic, where he graduated summa cum laude. In 2005, he completed his MBA in Health Care Management from University of Phoenix, and graduated magna cum laude. In 2018, he became a Diplomate of the American Academy of Cannabinoid Medicine, in early 2020 he became a Medical Review Officer, in June 2020, he became certified in Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) with the entire clinical team at Polaris Insight Center in San Francisco, California.
He is a proud father of twin daughters and grandfather of four, Dr. Rosado currently resides in DeLand, Florida.
