Daniel Zegzula, MD - Plastic Surgeon in Portland, Oregon

The purpose of this podcast is simple. We want you to get to know your doctor before meeting them in person because you're making a life-changing decision, and time is scarce. The more you can learn about who your doctor is before you meet them, the better that first meeting will be. There is no substitute for an in-person appointment, but we hope this comes close. I'm your host, Eva Sheie, and you're listening to Meet the Doctor. Welcome back to Meet the Doctor. My guest this morning is Dr. Dan Zegzula. He's a plastic surgeon in Portland, Oregon. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Eva. It's nice to be here.

So you're a longtime Portlander. How long have you been there?

My wife and I moved to Portland for the first time in 1991, right after I got out of medical school.

And then it sounds like you left and came back. How did that happen?

Yeah, so the way it worked for me is, well, I was originally kind of, well originally from several different places, I guess, but the high school, college in the Seattle area. Then went to St. Louis for medical school, spent four years there. Then for general surgery residency, came to Portland, Oregon for the first time, and that was 1991 to 1997. Then I decided I wanted to be a plastic surgeon and took a plastic surgery fellowship, and then we moved to Boston. So we were in Boston for a couple of years, 97 to 99, and then we came back to Portland again in 99 and we've been here since. So other than those two years we've been here for quite a while.

Do you remember, was there anything funny having come from the northwest and then going to St. Louis? Was there anything that stuck out in St. Louis like this place is really different?

Oh yeah. The culture was much different in the Midwest and in St. Louis, but not in a bad way. Just very different. The weather's different. The people, Midwesterners are a bit more laid back. They're not quite as much in a rush to be everywhere and do everything. There's a lot more diversity in terms of the population and I think in a way, very much a old school thoughts about how to do things and lifestyle. It was definitely different. I did realize though, that at the end of the four years in St. Louis, I didn't want to live in the Midwest. I wanted to be back on the coast.

I hear that a lot and then I don't often hear people say they wanted to go back to the Midwest. I'm from Minnesota. It's not like St. Louis. It's different too, but

Definitely different. I couldn't take the weather for one thing. It was so hot and muggy in the summer and the winters were so brutally cold. I think the coasts, we are a little bit more temperate in our seasons, but it was nice. I mean, I'm glad I did it. I was glad I had the experience.

Did you think the patients were different in some way?

They were, but my perspective of the patients was different then being a medical student, it's all quite new. You're trying to figure out this physician patient relationship, but it's all about you've got little to zero experience being a doctor yet, and so it's all quite new. But I thought that the patients that I treated, people that I met, they were all very thankful of the care they were receiving and also aware, but also appreciative of the fact that I wanted to learn and was just a student doctor and they didn't seem to hold it against me or they actually seemed kind of pleased to be part of the educational process. So it was a completely different time different than the way it is now, having a lot of experience and maturity. I feel that the patient physician relationship has changed for me, but in a very mature and stable way. But it was different back then.

When or what happened in this time period, or maybe it wasn't in this time period that made you want to go toward plastic surgery?

Yeah, that's a good question and it definitely was an evolution. It didn't happen overnight. It wasn't like a bolt of lightning. When you are in medical school, you get to rotate through all of the major parts of medicine, pediatrics and internal medicine OB, G Y N surgery, and I definitely was more drawn to the surgical side of things. I knew right away that I wanted to be a surgeon, and then I started to try and rotate through different types of surgery, neurosurgery, cardiothoracic surgery. When I got to plastics, it just resonated with me. The procedures seemed to be more fun. I really enjoy seeing the results of my work on the outside and the physical transformations that were occurring when these patients were really satisfying to me. So that's where I started to think, well, maybe this could be me. Then I had this thought that maybe a lot of people might about what plastic surgery is about, like, oh, is it all about this superficial surgery that you're doing for people and is that really the way you want to be a doctor? Is that how you want to help people? But plastic surgery is so much more than that, and I could see that right away that the transformations that were occurring were amazing things for patients, whether they were afflicted with cancers or birth defects or trauma, we were able to help them in a very meaningful way, and I really enjoyed that part of surgery.

Do you think that your role in people's lives today or even back then really is wider and broader than you expected it to be?

For sure. Yeah. Whatever the patient is seeing us for in terms of plastic surgeons, whether it's a deformity from birth or trauma, a recent cancer especially, the more outward and visible that issue is, the more angst that they have about how they're perceived, about how society will view them, how they'll fit in, how they'll move forward, how these physical deformities might affect future relationships or their current relationships. If you can get them through that, and let's say for instance, a woman with breast cancer, taking them through that journey onto the other side after their cancer operation, when they're healing, when they're recovering, when they're feeling better, it's a profoundly rewarding experience. And so yeah, I think that whole experience is much deeper than I originally thought it might be.

Having been at this for a while, are there patients that you've seen through multiple parts of their own lives?

Oh yeah. Now for sure in the last five years, you start to see your patients back again. Many of our reconstructions do need to be touched up over time, and so you get to see your patients from years ago, see how their lives have changed, of course, see how they've changed, see how their bodies have changed. And you realize that you've made long-term relationships with these people, so that's pretty cool.

When they see you do, they say you look exactly the same or do they say you've changed.

Many, many, many times they'll still say they don't think I've changed that much, but I certainly think I have. Everybody ages, but it is funny when they say that.

Now around Portland, is there anything that you're known for in particular in terms of procedures or specific patient types?

Yeah, I guess so. I don't like to admit it, but I'm one of the older surgeons in town now, and so I think I'm known as a breast reconstruction surgeon, probably primarily, but also a lot of surgeons. As your career gets longer, you build a larger and larger aesthetic practice on probably 50 50 at this point, and that part of your practice also grows in a way, just like your breast reconstruction patients, they network, they talk, there's support groups, but there are also circles of patients that talk about their aesthetic procedures and their mommy makeovers and their breast reductions and things like that. And the longer you're in practice, the more your name gets around. So I think I'm definitely known as a breast reconstruction specialist and also as a breast and body aesthetic surgeon, but I guess you don't really know exactly what they're saying out there. You hope it's all good. And as your maturity level increases, most of the time it is. And experience counts for a lot.

And people keep coming and they keep telling you that their friend told them to come and that that's

Yep. Now I had the recent experience of doing breast reductions on daughters of patients that I did breast reductions on early in my career.

Oh, that's interesting.

A lot of things, large breasts can run in families. I've never done a grandmother, mother and a daughter, but that may be coming.

There's still time. Talk to me about the people around you and the practice and the team that you have.

Sure. So our group is Portland Plastic Surgery Group. We're four surgeons strong now and to a person, I think they're all excellent surgeons and really warm, comforting, smart, intelligent people. So I think we're very fortunate in the group of individuals that we're working with. We try and also do that with the support staff that we have from our office administrator down to the receptionist and everybody in between. I think we have a really great working group right now. For the longest time I was in solo private practice for 12 years and it was showing up to work by yourself, and I just had a couple of employees and although we were very tight-knit group, just being a group of three people, it was a little bit isolating and a little bit lonely. Now the way it works in our office, all of the providers, all of the surgeons share one large office space.

(10:40)
We have our own desks, but we're all within talking distance of each other. So there's always a good morning and hello, how was your day? What are you guys planning on doing today? And then if you ever have questions, I want to talk about a patient, I want to get a follow up on a case that your partner did. It's really easy to communicate. The exchange of ideas and just pleasantries is really rewarding. It makes come into work a nice experience and you know that everybody's caring for you and supporting each other. Yeah, it's a good work environment.

Do you all cover each other?

Oh, of course. Yeah. Another nice thing about being in a group is that you don't have to be on call every weekend. You don't have to be constantly tied to your phone. So we definitely cover for each other.

How do you think Portland's changed over the years that you've been practicing there?

Well, Portland has definitely grown. That's one thing when I got here in 91, you could buy a really nice starter home for $80,000. Those days are long gone. When I bought my first home, which wasn't right away, it wasn't until I got out of training. We lived in what I thought was a fairly rural area with lots of pastures and some country roads and hardly any homes, and now it's just packed with homes. So it's grown and traffic has gotten worse, but it still has a smaller town feel. It doesn't feel as hustling and bustling as say Seattle does. We've had our social issues in the past few years that the city is trying to work through, and that hasn't been great to watch, but I think it's getting better. I think we do have a great food scene here, great restaurants. We're a big enough city that most of the entertainment will roll through here, whether it's major concerts or Broadway shows that are on rotation. So there's lots of fun stuff to do. There's several universities. We've got the medical school here, so there's a large influx of young people too, so it keeps things vibrant. So I still love Portland. I still love living here, but it is growing like every place it changes, but it's still a great place to be, great place to practice.

Do you have any kind of relationship with the medical school?

Yeah, Portland is a little bit different in that regard and it's changing, and I can tell you about that, but our medical school, O H S U, Oregon Health Sciences University is up on a hill and physically separated from the rest of the city by that hill. There's really only one major road up and one major road out, which makes it difficult to get to. And it's also been kind of a barrier of doctors going up and down that hill. So the university doctors stay at the university, the community doctors stay in the community. There has not been very much transition between the two, but the school is expanding and recently partnering with the community hospitals, and I think that's the start of an exchange of personnel and ideas and teaching and philosophy about how to approach patients. So my hope is that that continues and that we get more interaction with the university because one thing I do like doing is teaching. Some of the hospitals I work in do have residents from the university that will rotate with us, and I always find that a lot of fun teaching residents, but the physicians themselves don't mingle very much. And I'm hoping to see that change.

I never knew that about the hill, and I guess I never thought about it, but a lot of colleges are on hills because they are trying to keep you up there. They don't want you to leave.

And that's definitely the case there. Once you go up there, you work there and you don't leave there. You don't go to one of the community hospitals to occasionally do a case or help on a case.

And so do they have bunkers where everyone lives too and you just go underground and go to sleep and then come back out?

Well, that's why they call 'em residents.

They don't leave.

But the staff doctors of course don't have to do that, but it's just been the culture here again, I think it's going to change. I think it is changing, and I know some of the physicians up there, we meet at educational meetings and things. They're great people and they're very smart, and I think they have a lot to offer us as well as we can offer them the experiences that we have in private hospitals.

How common is it for someone to go to school at O H S U and then stay in Portland?

Oh, I think it's pretty common. Yeah, I think it's pretty common. Certainly it was my situation, although I did take that journey out to the east coast for my training, I never would've thought about living in Portland if it wasn't for my time in residency at O H S U, and I just kind of fell in love with the city, the size, the location. So I think a lot of people come to Portland and stay.

I once heard that Grand Rapids had the most plastic surgeons buy per capita for the population because people would go to school there and they would like it so much that they would decide to just stay, and then they all started competing with each other. And there's only so many patients in a city.

I've had the pleasure of going to Grand Rapids and it was a really nice place. I could see the attraction, and I think if you go someplace and you spend a few years there, you realize how much you like it. And also residency training, it's a deep experience, stressful, but also transformative. And I think that's conducive to learning to love your environment as you grow. You grow in a way that you develop roots in an attachment to the community. Yeah, so I think there's a high likelihood that wherever you train that you're going to stay or at least it's high on your list. Sometimes people always want to go home where they grew up. That also sometimes has an attraction.

You have such a really interesting way of explaining your perceptions of why stuff works the way it works, and I keep thinking you must be a girl dad.

Yeah, I am a girl dad. I have two daughters. That's pretty perceptive of you, Eva.

Well, I already knew that you had two girls. I just needed a good transition to get into it.

Well done.

Did you watch Portlandia?

No, I was definitely aware of Portlandia, but I can say that I never watched an episode. Probably little parts of it and you'd see on a TV like Portlandia is coming up and this is what they're going to show. I did see Fred Armisen in town once or twice, but I never watched his show.

Okay, tell me about that.

Oh no. It was just you're shopping or you're having coffee, and he walks by it. It was never,

So he was living there when they were filming it? He just was around all the time?

I think he was around a lot. I'm not sure if he ever lived here, but he was definitely around a lot. And it was definitely filmed here. I mean, a lot of the scenes that you see are the local streets and local coffee shops and things like that.

Do you have a local coffee shop that you love?

No, I do go out to coffee a lot, especially in the weekends after I run with my running group, we'll hit a coffee shop, but we rotate around. There is lots of good coffee shops, local coffee shops. Of course there's the Starbucks, but there's also the ones that are just unique to Portland, and it's always fun to see those places.

Do you get the same drink everywhere you go?

If I order, it's usually a vanilla latte. Pretty boring, pretty straightforward, but sometimes just black coffee as well.

Okay, but you're a runner, so how much do you run?

Depends. If I'm training and for what I'm training right now I'm training for the Chicago Marathon, so I'm training a lot. Earlier this year I ran the Boston Marathon, so it's been a year of constantly training for one marathon or another, so probably 35 miles a week on average and a little bit more when I'm getting a little bit closer to the marathon. So it seems like I'm training a lot this year. It's been something that I've been doing for a while. When I moved to Portland actually is when my running really took off, and it's been great for my mental health and physical health, and it's a good stress reliever.

Do you prefer to run with people or by yourself?

I prefer to do both. I like to have a little bit of each, because when you're running by yourself, it's your time to process issues, problems or just let the stress of the day melt away. And then when you're running with people, it's that comradery. And if you need the support of your running buddies, I got to tell you about my tough day, or I have to tell you about this problem I have at work or this problem that I'm having at the home. You get to talk it out and you let things process in your head, so it's a really good therapy for me.

Do you have a route that you love?

Portland is a great running city with the Willamette River and the proximity to the hills and the forests that we have. There's lots of running trails through Portland, so I can't say that I have a particularly favorite run. I'm mostly along the waterfront of the Willamette River where our office is, and so at the end of my day I can just put my running gear on and hit the streets and have a really nice run up and down the Willamette River. But if I really want to get away, I'll go out into the woods into Forest Park, which is only about a mile from here, and you can run the streets and then hit the trails and suddenly you can't even tell that you're in a city. Beautiful little brooks and streams and lots of forest canopy, the sounds of birds. And every once in a while you get to see deer, even sometimes a bobcat. I've run into lots of animals up there, and it really doesn't make you feel like you're in the middle of the city, but you are. So it's a really beautiful thing. Portland is having Forest Park and having the proximity to something so really untouched within the central part of the city.

Now your office is downtown on the river in a beautiful historic building that pretty much everyone would recognize. Were you the one that found that spot?

No, when we first made this group, we took quite a while of trying to find the space, and we actually looked at it very early in our search, but the realtor who was taking us around showed us a space that was available that just wasn't for us. It wasn't the right size, it wasn't the right shape, it didn't have pretty views. And then we were like, no, this isn't going to work. And it was about six months later, took a while. At the time Portland was, there wasn't a lot of available commercial space, but then we hired a new realtor, somebody who had more specialty in medical spaces, and she said, well, I want you to look back at the Albers Mill building. And we said, well, we've been there and we didn't really like what we saw. And she said, no, there's a new space that came available. And we walked into the space and just like, oh yeah, this is going to be for us. This is going to be beautiful. So we got lucky in that regard, and I think everybody fell in love with the space and said, this is going to be the place for us.

Was the surgery center already in there or did you build it?

No, the surgery center, which is across the hall from our clinic space, was an office. I think a realty group was working there, and they moved out and made that space available, but we can't take credit for the building of the surgery center because another surgeon built it out and he did a fantastic job. He was older in his career, and then when he started to talk about wanting to retire, then we started talking with him about expanding into that space, and that's how we acquired that. It worked out beautifully for us, and I think well for him too, because he had an exit strategy.

It just must be so wonderful to have everything right there in such a beautiful place.

Yeah, it's very convenient, very comfortable.

Other than running, what do you like to do in your free time?

I'll let you in on a little secret now. I don't want to make this sound too odd. I certainly like to be home. I like to be with my family. I like to futz around in the yard, but when I've got some free time to burn and I just want to relax, I'll play video games. I've been a gamer for a long time, so I'll sit in front of my PS five and I'll play some video games.

What do you play right now?

Like a guilty pleasure? Right now it's a game called Diablo four, but there's some really great games out there. A lot of people are probably aware now of The Last Of Ws because the HBO, they turned it into an H B O show, but that series of games was amazing to play, great stories, great storyline, great art. The acting by the character actors is amazing, so it can be as much fun and certainly as engrossing and entertaining as going to a really good movie, except you get to kind of participate in it a little bit. So that's a lot of fun.

Here's another one. Music or podcasts when you're wearing headphones.

Yeah, music. I'm a music lover. There's always music playing in the operating room. There's always music in the car when I'm driving to and from work.

Do you always get to control the music in the or do you let anybody else choose?

I would certainly let them choose, but I usually start it, but I'll ask them, Hey, if we want to play something else, let's throw out an idea. So it can be anything. Not a lot of country western, not a lot of classical, but almost everything in between.

Siri or Alexa?

Siri.

So you talk to Siri in the OR too. Hey, Siri play.

Oh yeah. To change the music or the volume up, volume down. Or play a certain artist's essential playlist, Siri, because sometimes the nurse is busy or they don't know how to open my iPhone or my whatever. And so you call out to Siri and she does it for you. Is Siri a she? I think Siri, is she in my head, Siri is she. But

She's definitely a she. And what's your go-to choice of music?

Seventies. Seventies music is a good background music to operate to. It's familiar, so you can sing along, you can concentrate. It's not in your face. It's just nice background music to operate to, and everybody seems to like it.

Good call. We've learned a lot about you today. It's been really fun.

It has been fun.

If someone wants to come see you in person, how can they learn more about you?

Well, our website has our bios, and so that's a good place to start, and I don't think it's too hard to come in and see me just in person. We do some telemedicine. If you're from out of the city, happy to do a first consult via Zoom or even a telephone call. But coming in and meeting, there's no substitute for that. First consults are always fun. I guess it depends on the reason that brings you to my care, but getting to know people for the first time is an important step. So come on down.

I'll put links in the show notes to your Instagram and your website and your phone number and all the things.

Sounds great.

Thank you for joining us today.

Thanks, Eva. It was lots of fun.

If you are considering making an appointment or are on your way to meet this doctor, be sure to let them know you heard them on the Meet the Doctor podcast. Check the show notes, links, including the doctor's website and Instagram to learn more. Are you a doctor or do you know a doctor who'd like to be on the Meet the Doctor podcast? Book your free recording session at Meet the Doctor podcast.com. Meet the Doctor is Made with Love in Austin, Texas and is a production of The Axis, T H E A X I S.io.