He is credited with conceptualizing the field of biophysics and with inventing a modern medical device known as the Bovie electrosurgical generator.

Bovie used such knowledge to create his electrosurgical device and he first employed it in neurosurgical cases with Harvey Cushing, known as the father of neurosurgery.

[4] Bovie's device allowed Cushing to reexplore operations in patients with brain masses that had been declared inoperable.

[7] Bovie later worked at Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, and at Colby College.

He had not been motivated by financial gain, so he had sold the patent rights to his electrosurgical device to a manufacturer for one U.S. dollar.

He had diabetes, arthritis, and long-standing obesity, and his early work with radium led to chronic pain in his hands.