Lamar Hardy DO, FAAD, FCAP
Chapin born. Navy trained. Triple board-certified. Home again, to build a practice rooted in this community.
Chapin Born.
Chapin Raised.
Dr. Hardy didn't move to Chapin to open a practice, Lamar came home.
I was born and raised in this town, graduating from Chapin High School in 1997. I committed myself to the Eagles as a three-sport athlete on back-to-back state championship teams, and I’m a proud product of the Midlands community I now aim to serve.
I’m not a physician who chose the Midlands for demographics or proximity to Columbia, these are the roads I learned to drive on, the fields I practiced varsity sports on; I’ve been tied to this town for my entire life. It’s the community that shaped me.
So when I decided to build a dermatology practice, there was never a question of where. That sign out front isn’t just another ‘marketing banner,’ it’s the homecoming announcement I’ve been waiting for.
"I was raised in Chapin, and returning to serve this community isn't just a career move, it's a homecoming."— Dr. Lamar Hardy
State Champions &
Chapin Eagles.
Before medicine, there was competition. At Chapin High School, I was a three-sport athlete: a member of the back-to-back 1996 and 1997 state champion wrestling team (placing 3rd individually in 1996 and 2nd in 1997), a contributor to the 1996 AA State Championship baseball team, and a lineman for the Chapin Eagles football team. I learned early the relationship between discipline and results.
Those same qualities, the work ethic and the attention to detail, are the foundation of how I practice medicine today. You don’t get to triple board certification without them.
25+ Years of
Service & Sacrifice.
After Chapin, I enrolled at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina in Charleston, where the discipline of the corps of cadets met the rigor of a pre-med curriculum. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology before accepting my commission as an officer in the United States Navy.
From the Citadel’s parade ground to the wardroom, I answered the call to serve. My Naval winging ceremony was surrounded by family, and I served nearly a decade as a Naval aviator before returning to school to study medicine.
I earned my Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine from West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, then re-entered Navy medicine for the clinical years that would shape the rest of my career.
My clinical training spanned Naval Medical Center San Diego and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Institutions that demand precision, resilience, and the highest standard of care under pressure. The patients I served were those who had given everything for their country.
That standard didn’t leave when the uniform came off. It became the foundation of how I practice dermatology.
Certifications
& Clinical Service
Medical Centers
Coming Home To
Precision at
Every Layer.
It isn’t just the credentials. It’s what they represent together. My triple board certification spans dermatology, dermatopathology, and Mohs surgery. I don’t just treat what I can see; I understand the tissue at the microscopic level.
When I remove a skin cancer, I read my own slides. When I make a diagnosis, it’s grounded in a pathologist’s understanding of the biology beneath. That closed-loop, single-physician precision is rare, and it’s what every Collo Rosso patient will get.
Mohs micrographic surgery is my signature procedure: cure rates of 98% to 99% for primary tumors, the highest of any skin cancer treatment modality available, maximum tissue preservation, and same-day results. It demands a surgeon who is simultaneously an expert pathologist.
The Hardys
of Chapin.
Behind every great physician is the life that shaped them. For me, that life is centered on my family. My wife Jennifer has been alongside me through military service, cross-country moves, board exams, and the long road back home.
There is an old photo of my daughter Grace and me lying in the grass, studying. It captures something the credentials do not: I have always been learning, always doing it with the people I love nearby.
My son Walter carries on the athletic tradition, a Coronado football player with the same competitive drive. Returning to Chapin is, in many ways, a family decision as much as a professional one. This community is where my family belongs, and where we intend to stay.
A Name Born
Under the Sicilian Sun.
Collo Rosso is Italian for red neck, and the name carries more than one meaning here.
I was stationed in Sicily when I was selected for dermatology training. Most of my off-duty hours were spent on a road bike, climbing the switchbacks of Mt. Etna under a Mediterranean sun that doesn't ask permission. I came back from those rides with the kind of burn most South Carolinians know well: the back of the neck, the tops of the ears, the bridge of the nose. The phrase stuck. It became personal.
It's also a quiet nod to the people I grew up around in the Midlands: farmers, builders, mechanics, coaches, the working hands of South Carolina, whose skin tells the story of every long day spent outdoors. Their honest work ethic is the same one that carried me through The Citadel and 25+ years in the United States Navy.
And clinically, the name points to my specialty: head and neck skin cancers, the cumulative result of decades of sun exposure on the very places the name describes. It's the dermatology I trained for, and it's the dermatology this community needs most.
Today, the closest dermatology options for most Chapin residents require a drive into Columbia or beyond. For the kind of patients we serve, that distance can be the difference between catching a skin cancer early and catching it too late. Collo Rosso Dermatology will open Late 2026 at 306 Lexington Avenue in Chapin: the full spectrum of medical, cosmetic, and surgical dermatology (Mohs included) delivered close to home, by a physician who has never stopped calling this place home.