Lee B. Daniel, MD - Plastic Surgeon in Eugene, Oregon

Eva Sheie (00:03):
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's 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. My guest on Meet the Doctor today is Lee Daniel, and he's a plastic surgeon in Eugene, Oregon, and he is someone I know well because, fun fact, I built his website in, what year was it, Dr. Daniel?

Dr. Daniel (00:48):
Don't Date yourself. Don't date ourselves that far back.

Eva Sheie (00:52):
It might've been your second website of all time. I might've replaced the first one with the second one. I think that's probably enough of a timeline.

Dr. Daniel (01:01):
And now we're replacing the 10th one with the 11th one.

Eva Sheie (01:05):
It's kind of like having babies. It's so awful.

Dr. Daniel (01:08):
Yeah.

Eva Sheie (01:08):
It takes about that long.

Dr. Daniel (01:12):
But ultimately the end goal is fantastic.

Eva Sheie (01:15):
And worth it. Yeah.

Dr. Daniel (01:17):
Yep.

Eva Sheie (01:17):
Yeah.

Dr. Daniel (01:18):
Nice analogy. I like it.

Eva Sheie (01:20):
So what's your practice look like today?

Dr. Daniel (01:23):
Well, I do all cosmetic work. Started the first med spa in Eugene, really 25 years ago. We came here in 1999, so this is my 25th anniversary of being in Eugene, Oregon, but do all cosmetic stuff. It's an equal smattering of facial stuff, breast, body, liposuction, rhinoplasties. Two days ago I did an endoscopic brow lift, bilateral lower blepharoplasty, face and neck lift, and then yesterday I did a back liposuction, breast augmentation, abdominoplasty, hip suction. So big cases, fun things. It's so refreshing to do what I do. I'm one of the rare people that actually loves their job, I think. So it's kind of what I've told our kids. I don't care if you're a CEO or sweeping the floors, as long as it's a job that you can get excited about, get out of bed for in the morning and love, then you'll be good at it, and then you'll ultimately be successful. So that's sort of how I look at my day-to-day in the office as well.

Eva Sheie (02:28):
That's good advice. I was reading the other day, oh, maybe I was listening to a podcast. Spotify told me this week that I listened to over 40,000 minutes of podcasts in 2024. Oh, that might be a little much, but it's for work, right?

Dr. Daniel (02:45):
Yeah, right.

Eva Sheie (02:48):
They said the thing we need to be teaching the kids is not how great you are, but to be humble and if you can get that one thing right, then everything else falls into place.

Dr. Daniel (02:59):
Yeah, well that's great. When we're done today, I'll call my kids and give 'em that advice.

Eva Sheie (03:06):
Okay. It might be too late?

Dr. Daniel (03:08):
Yeah, I don't know. Probably.

Eva Sheie (03:10):
It's a hard thing to do, I think, but I think it embodies you pretty well. I have never seen you out there, that's a good analogy, tooting your own horn or being overly self promotional. I think you just like to quietly do great work.

Dr. Daniel (03:28):
I would like to agree with that. I think that's reinforcement enough. Tooting your own horn is something that I just wasn't brought up in ever doing that. My dad was a doctor, but he was as happy on the farm as he was in the hospital. And mom helped raise five kids and we were brought up with that mindset to work hard and just let the chips fall where they may. So it turned out pretty good for all of us. I have four younger sisters, by the way, and I don't know that having four younger sisters truly prepared me for a life as a plastic surgeon, but I feel pretty comfortable around all the girls in the room. But everybody's done a great job and everybody works hard, and that's just kind of what was expected. My dad was a drill sergeant in the Marines, so with that background, we didn't ever get, oh, at a boy, for making your bed. I mean, you just had to take care of your chores and do them and know that that's what was expected, and I think it gave us a sense of responsibility, but accomplishment at the same time.

Eva Sheie (04:38):
So he was a Marine and then a doctor and also a farmer in his free time.

Dr. Daniel (04:44):
Yeah, pretty much. I know it's confusing, isn't it? So dad enlisted in the Marines at 17. Back then, everybody lied about their age so they could get in early, but by the time you finished basic training, world War II was over. So he was in for two years, used the GI bill for the remainder of college and then went to medical school and his dad was a pharmacist, so there's some medical stuff in the family. His older sister is a nurse, so that's where I got my full dose of medicine from dad. But we grew up, I grew up on a working functional farm in central Kentucky, so we had 200 acres. We had feeder steers at one point we had 125 head of cattle on our farm. We raised corn, we raised hay, and then we were in Kentucky, so we raised tobacco as well. It was mostly my summer job was working on the farm five days a week, and then when dad would come home from the hospital on Saturdays, he'd want me to go out there and help him with farm chores. I'm like, dad, I've been doing this for five days. I'm going to go to the lake and do some water skiing.

Eva Sheie (05:53):
Were you exposed to the circle of life with the animals on the farm?

Dr. Daniel (06:00):
Oh, absolutely. We didn't do any breeding operations, but with steers, feeder steers, pretty much for steers, all they think about is eating and getting fat, but you'd buy them sometimes as bulls. So early on I knew that when you turn a bull into a steer, without getting too graphic about it, there was something happening there. But we had a bunch of different birds that my dad wanted on the farm. We had at one point we had 20 to 25 peacocks. We had Guinea fowl, we had lots of chickens, lots of eggs. My dad's a general surgeon and he's taking dozens of eggs to the hospital to sell for a dollar and 50 cents, and I'm like, he was just that guy and instilled in me that work ethic. I think part of what drew me into plastic surgery too was when he trained, he trained with a plastic surgeon in Miami named D. Ralph Millard, who still basically developed the main cleft lip repair that's still done today.

(07:10):
And there were books of D. Ralph Millard's in our house that my dad had, and in high school I was amazed at these textbooks. I'm like, oh God, this is crazy stuff. And as much as I loved my dad being a doctor, I knew I wanted to be a doctor. But then it's crazy to think of it, but in high school I was pretty sure I wanted to be a plastic surgeon and not very many people have that type of life plan set up. If anything, I think part of my brain from early on was welded into symmetry and spatial orientation and three dimensional analysis and creativity. So even though I sort of selected plastic surgery, I think plastic surgery ultimately selected me as well. Those are the strong sets that I have. I grew up being a musician as well and fairly dextrous with my hands. So I think the best parts of me allow me to be the best plastic surgeon that I can be.

Eva Sheie (08:10):
What kind of musician?

Dr. Daniel (08:13):
Well, I played actually clarinet even into college. I like to say that I was really bad on a lot of different instruments. You could put me in a room with almost any instrument, I could pretend that I could play it. But I did play trumpet for a while. I've got a guitar, a fender bass, dabbled on piano, some just kind of a get together with my friends and kind of hang out and do that. But my main instrument was clarinet. In fact, my music professor thought I should be a professional jazz clarinet player, and as I started to analyze life as a traveling musician, I kind of thought, yoiu know, I do like to have food on my table. I better go to medical school first and then we'll see what happens after that.

Eva Sheie (08:56):
That's wild. So you went to high school in Kentucky?

Dr. Daniel (09:02):
I did.

Eva Sheie (09:03):
And then where did you end up? How did you end up give us the sort of play by play from Kentucky to Eugene?

Dr. Daniel (09:10):
From Danville, I went to undergrad at Vanderbilt who was a molecular biology major, chemistry minor, kind of the science nerd type, and stayed at Vanderbilt for medical school. Just was a great school, great prep for a good general surgery program. And so then matched at Emory University affiliated hospitals in Atlanta for general surgery. That was an amazing time. One thing about my personality, I have a pretty selective memory. I only remember the good parts. I am able to maybe data dump all the bad stuff and a lot of people would think, oh, general surgery training. It was awful. It was awful. It was the worst time of my life. I mean it was some of the best times of my life. I mean when I've worked my hardest is when I've been the happiest. And so after five years of general surgery there and I got board certified in general surgery, then I matched in plastic surgery at UT Southwestern in Dallas and just a tremendous program has been for decades now. And there really wasn't much that I wasn't exposed to really very little, if anything that I didn't feel very comfortable with once I finished in Dallas with plastic surgery.

Eva Sheie (10:26):
So then you said, I don't want to live in the sunshine anymore. I'm out of here.

Dr. Daniel (10:31):
Well, so it's a little more complicated. I met my wife Catherine when I was training in Dallas. She's from Dallas, has four siblings, all four, went to SMU in Dallas, and a mutual friend from Vanderbilt knew both of us and thought we should meet. And she was clearly right, but Catherine had had enough of the Dallas scene as well, and I didn't want to even think about raising kids in a big city. So I moved back home to Kentucky and started the plastic surgery division of a big multi-specialty group in Lexington, Kentucky. My family farm was maybe 30 miles away, 35 miles away in Danville. And I had a sister living in Danville, a sister living in Lexington and a sister living in northern Kentucky. So we were all still pretty nuclear at that point. Was in Lexington for eight years. The multi-specialty group that I joined hadn't had a plastic surgeon ever, so I started that division.

(11:25):
Ultimately we were up to 190 plus physicians in the group. We had our own HMO of 80,000 patients, but that clinic process didn't really allow me to do the cosmetic surgeries that I really felt I was best at that I wanted to do. So after eight years, made a decision to leave that group and really not that I would ever think I'd leave my home state of Kentucky, I mean for Kentucky basketball fans, I still bleed blue for that. Always was enamored with the West coast. And so looked at a couple of positions out here. The one in Eugene that I ultimately took was just spectacular. There hadn't been a new plastic surgeon come to the Eugene area and maybe 10 or 12 years. And so the new techniques that I had were interesting, and a lot of the older plastic surgeons in town would come watch me operate so they could see some of the new things that I was doing.

(12:16):
It was kind of fun. All kids were born in Kentucky. All three of our kids were born in Kentucky, so at least they are native Kentuckians, although they really feel probably more like Oregon Ducks and the U of O, University of Oregon Ducks has been a big part of us being in Eugene. It's really fun to see them doing so well in football this year too. But they've been pretty good in football for a lot of years, but really no regrets. I think a lot of people asked myself, but particularly my wife, why did you move to Eugene? And her answer is, we're still trying to figure that one out, but we've kind of figured it out. It's a magical place. My close friends from high school back in Danville, Kentucky, they're like, you're crazy. Why did you do this? But then everyone that's come out to visit, they're like, wow, this place is amazing.

(13:11):
So it truly is a great place to live. I like to do the fishing thing and there's a couple of great blue ribbon rivers running through basically downtown Eugene. I can be out catching 34 inch steelhead and then be home in five minutes. It's really cool. We've got the mountains, we've got the snow where we're going this weekend with our kids to go up to the mountains and get up there before Christmas. But then we've got the Pacific Ocean too. And if you have a mindset to do almost anything in Eugene, you can do it. But like you said, yes, it's gray, it's pretty gray in the wintertime and we get a lot of rain, but today was magical. Here we are middle to end of December and it was 65 degrees and sunny all day long. So a little bit of everything.

Eva Sheie (14:01):
Eugene is sort of known for running, isn't it?

Dr. Daniel (14:05):
Exactly.

Eva Sheie (14:05):
Have you ever been a runner?

Dr. Daniel (14:06):
The moniker is track town, USA, and of course Nike was basically founded here. If anybody read Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, I mean that's a big part, the university athletics. So we call him Uncle Phil for some of his philanthropy to the university, but the track stadium is actually right down the hill from our house, Hayward Field. It's a magical place. And

(14:33):
We nearly always have the NCAA finals here. We have the Olympic trials here every four years besides a lot of other invitational meets. So we have a diamond level meet called the Prefontaine Classic, which are professional track athletes that come here every year for a competitive meet to get their diamond points. And we're so close to Hayward Field that we can hear the announcer on the PA system if I happen not to be there. And I'm usually there for most of those meets. But yeah, there's runners everywhere. When we first looked at coming out too, I mean I was biking a lot at that time, 25 years ago there were 125 miles of bike trails just basically within the city. And so it's been a good place for that. But you're exactly right, track down USA, is it. It's spectacular.

Eva Sheie (15:25):
So when you're just out and about, are there always people running around? Is it just part of the scenery?

Dr. Daniel (15:32):
If I'm going to work super early at 5:30 in the morning, yes, you got to watch out for runners at 10 o'clock at night, you got to watch out for runners. And I think everybody, because it's in the wintertime at least dark and gray, they've got amazing fluorescent clothing that everybody is smart enough to wear. And I had a car once that had an infrared scanner, so I could see people in the darkness and the rain. And this time of year, the sun goes down at 4:30 in the afternoon. We're far enough up in northern latitudes that I think we get maybe eight and a half hours of sun a day. But that doesn't stop the hardcores. They're out. They're out all the time, for sure.

Eva Sheie (16:19):
Another interesting thing about Eugene and it's sort of unique ability to attract talent is that there is an unusually large number of good plastic surgeons there.

Dr. Daniel (16:31):
Right.

Eva Sheie (16:32):
Is that accurate?

Dr. Daniel (16:33):
Yeah, I think it's pretty amazing. And the medical care in general, I think people choose to live here for a lot of the reasons we've been discussing. And so when it comes to looking at the training programs that the physicians through all different specialties have been at, it truly is a spectacular medical community in general from a plastic surgery standpoint. I mean, it's the full gamut. There are reconstructive guys, there's people doing some other cosmetic surgery, but I kind of feel like I'm sort of the guy here, which is kind of nice. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but nobody has more fun doing this than I do. And I don't think you can have fun doing it if you're not good at it, and you can't be good at it if you're not having fun doing it. So it's a little bit of a double-edged sword there, but both of those sides reinforce the other.

(17:27):
And again, no regrets in Eugene. You would think, the other thing about Eugene is kind of, its sort of crunchy sort of tree hugging background. And I was a little nervous about coming out here doing cosmetic surgery because I thought people would look at it as unnatural, but ultimately people here are trying to be the best person that they can be, and there clearly are some limitations to what you can do with running five miles a day or exercising or going to the gym or eating. And so I think the same mindset allows people to feel pretty comfortable about the plastic surgery cosmetic techniques that we have today. And in today's plastic surgery world, the results are so natural anyway. I mean, I had a patient just yesterday tell me that nobody noticed her rhinoplasty. And ultimately, I think that's a good thing. I mean, if your nose looked like it had been operated upon, then that's something we don't really want. The other side of the coin is I've had a few patients a few years ago that were unhappy that more people didn't say anything about their surgeries. They wanted everybody to comment on them. But I think it's another technique out here where people are trying to be their best selves and the cosmetic business has really been booming for me.

Eva Sheie (18:57):
Is it possible, and if not, it's fine, to articulate how you're different from the others. There's lots of good choices, and I think even nationwide, plastic surgeons are wonderful and the quality is extremely high anywhere you go.

Dr. Daniel (19:15):
I think you're exactly right. I do tell patients that, yes, I'm your plastic surgeon, but I want you to feel like I'm a good human being first. I'll be your plastic surgeon second, but I want you to feel comfortable with me as a person that I'm approachable, that you don't hesitate to call me. Every patient that I operate on gets my personal cell phone number and I urge them to call me anytime, day or night, text me anytime day or night. And I try to be a person that is approachable when we first meet in the office and try to get to know the patients specifically. I think the surgical techniques certainly speak for themselves. If you look at our websites and all that stuff, like everybody has. But I think the thing that sets my practice apart is from top to bottom, I've surrounded myself with good caring human beings.

(20:12):
We work hard. That's kind of the thing. And we work hard because we like it. We not necessarily working hard because we have to make money. I mean, I think everybody top to bottom is very vested in the practice. I'd like to think that that does come from me, but the surgery side manager, my spa side manager, I mean everybody really, I think has the same mindset. And I do think that is the thing that sets me apart. I would like to think that I have a personality that people can relate to. And I do think having grown up, doing farm work, common labor, working at big city ERs, I've been able to see all walks of life, all different echelons of society. And I think that allows me to relate to people on whatever level they are. And I do kind of pride myself in that side of the practice that patients feel comfortable with us, and it's borne apart in a lot of the reviews that we get with, which are really, it's pretty flattering most of the time.

Eva Sheie (21:28):
I think it's really funny that you give all your patients your cell phone number, but you wouldn't give it to me. You didn't want to hear about marketing.

Dr. Daniel (21:34):
That is not true. I did have your email, but it was at one of your other businesses when we tried to reacquire, so I didn't have your number either, so maybe you didn't want to give it to me. So

Eva Sheie (21:49):
No, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't give it to me.

Dr. Daniel (21:50):
But now you're stuck with me, so you're in trouble now.

Eva Sheie (21:54):
It's actually one of the smartest things I've ever seen that, in the sense that you want to delegate and focus on what matters if you're giving your phone number to your patients, but not to people who need you to approve content or look at a social media post and delegate that to others, I have a lot of respect for that.

Dr. Daniel (22:16):
The OR I have trouble delegating, in the office, that's not a problem.

Eva Sheie (22:21):
In fact, another thing that people may or may not know about you, I would bet that people around Eugene know that you fish every Wednesday. And you've been doing that for how long?

Dr. Daniel (22:33):
The 25 years I've been here.

Eva Sheie (22:35):
Every Wednesday.

Dr. Daniel (22:36):
When we first moved here, I said, well, I like to fish. And everybody said, oh, you need to meet this doctor. Oh, you need to meet him. You need to meet him. But everybody said the same doctor's name. And so I'm like, okay. Well, he's a new, was a neurosurgeon here in town that fished a lot. And we met probably within a few weeks of being here that we went to church together, and his kids were about the same age as our kids. And I have fished with him as many Wednesdays as possible ever since we first moved to town. In fact, today is a Wednesday. It's normally my fishing day, but the rivers are what we call blown out. We've had a lot of rain lately, so the fish don't bite when the rivers are on the rise. So today was not a fishing day, but it's the season.

(23:25):
I've got plenty of things to do. I've been wrapping some presents today and doing errands around town and actually over visiting with him before we did this little tape. So we're good buddies and we go on trips, some to various different places. I don't just buddy up with him because of his father-in-law, but his father-in-law has a fishing cabin in Alaska as well as a fishing cabin in The Bahamas. So really good friends to have. But we do trout, we do salmon, we do steelhead. Summertime when it's warmer, we do bass. And there's a couple of days when we go down to fish bass in one of the rivers and not uncommonly, we will land 75 to a hundred fish, really. And our world record day for salmon, a river that's about 45, 50 minutes from here. He and I landed 52 salmon in one day a few years ago. And these are not massive salmon, but they're 10 to 15 pound fish. So who wouldn't like that?

Eva Sheie (24:37):
Nobody.

Dr. Daniel (24:38):
Yeah. Well, maybe my wife. I can't get her to go fishing to save my life anymore.

Eva Sheie (24:44):
I'd go with you.

Dr. Daniel (24:46):
Okay, well come on out.

Eva Sheie (24:47):
You know how some people, some fishermen are anointed somehow and they just know how to find fish. It's like the superpower. Are you one of those?

Dr. Daniel (24:57):
I wish I had more of that superpower, but we talked about all the outdoor activity things that are available around the area here. 90% of it's just being out. My buddy and I are of mind that when we catch a fish, that's a bonus. If we don't, we got to see the mountains, we got to see the water, we got to row the boat, maybe There's a few beverages happening during the day in the boat, and that truly is, it's really 90% of it. And if we come back and didn't get a bite, didn't get a fish, it's really still been a great day. And I kind of call myself a hopeless optimist. If you're a fisherman, you have to be a hopeless optimist. You have to think, okay, the last thousand casts, we didn't get a bite, but the next one's going to be it

Eva Sheie (25:49):
Always the next one.

Dr. Daniel (25:51):
It's always the next one. And sometimes it is. Yeah.

Eva Sheie (25:55):
You guys have a routine that you follow every week when you're in town?

Dr. Daniel (25:58):
We do. We typically use his boat. We both row. It is mostly river fishing, so these are called McKinsey drift boats. And we row and we peel off each he rows more since it's his boat, and he's actually better rowing than I am, but we both trade off and one guy fishes while the other guy's rowing. Sometimes you anchor, both fish, but the caveat is that there might be a little bit of bourbon that comes on the trip with us. And the rule is you can't have any bourbon until you've caught a fish. So some days we don't catch a fish and then we have to break with protocol. So sometimes you just have to bend the rules a little bit. But anyhow.

Eva Sheie (26:49):
That's definitely after lunchtime though. That's not

Dr. Daniel (26:51):
Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yes.

Eva Sheie (26:53):
Okay.

Dr. Daniel (26:54):
But there's many rivers around. I talk about the couple that are in Eugene. There's probably eight or 10 rivers that we can get to within an hour and a half to two hour drive. And it really depends on what fish we're after, what the river levels are. The routine is to try to figure out the river level. So for example, today the rivers are blown out, like I said earlier, too much water. But we've been checking the river levels. There's different websites that show the river levels. And so pretty much Monday we knew we weren't going to be fishing today. So kind of planned on visiting with you, visiting with all the people out there, listening to us, but getting a few errands done. It's nice.

Eva Sheie (27:43):
Before you had the websites, did you actually have a scouting routine? Did one of you go out and look?

Dr. Daniel (27:49):
We've done that. Yeah, we've done that pretty much since I've been here. They've had level monitors for the river levels in most of the major rivers. The ones that don't, we have to factor in the differences between the two. So sometimes, yeah, we've driven to a river that's not on the website and it's been fishable or sometimes it's not been fishable, but we don't necessarily go and scout it out first and then drive back. It may be an hour, hour and a half drive to it. So we just pack up the stuff and go and just see what it's like.

Eva Sheie (28:30):
Do you have a network of people where you can get intel? I mean, it used to be like he'd run by the bait shop and ask.

Dr. Daniel (28:39):
Most fishermen don't want to tell anybody else where they called the fish. So that's difficult. So we have to have a group of inner circle fishermen that we talk to. But now there's Facebook sites fishing, the Siuslaw River Facebook site, and people are on there showing pictures of the fish they caught at a certain hole. And then the next day there's 10 fishermen there. So

Eva Sheie (29:06):
So you know where not to go the next time.

Dr. Daniel (29:06):
As far as intel, I mean, like I said, I mean if we catch a fish, it's great. We may not catch the most fish, but we do fine. But just getting out and about is fine. And I think probably getting out of the house is important for my wife to have me leave every now and then she gets out of the house and does her equestrian stuff. I mean, she's been doing equestrian sports since we first met. So if I ever complained about her out doing her ore stuff, she goes, well, you knew this about me before we got married. I'm like, okay. I can't argue with that.

Eva Sheie (29:43):
That's true. Do you ever keep any of them?

Dr. Daniel (29:47):
Some of the fish are fairly regulated, so there are hatchery fish that we can keep. So the hatchery fish, it's interesting, without getting totally off topic, but when fish are raised in the hatchery, they clip a little fin behind their dorsal fin that's called the adipose fin. So if it's hatchery fish, you're nodding. So you know what I'm talking about.

Eva Sheie (30:08):
I do because my husband whines about it nonstop.

Dr. Daniel (30:11):
Yeah.

Eva Sheie (30:13):
He's from southwest Washington.

Dr. Daniel (30:15):
Okay. Yeah, absolutely. But I agree that the wild fish, you want to leave in the river, you want them to go do their stuff and make more wild fish.

Eva Sheie (30:27):
How do they know they're wild?

Dr. Daniel (30:29):
Well, the wild fish have their adipose fin, so they have been reared in the river system as opposed to the hatchery system. And that's probably what drew me to fishing a little bit out here, more so than hunting. I mean, I've done a little bit of hunting, not anything crazy, but with fishing, you can catch the biggest fish in the river and put them back. If you're hunting, hunting, the biggest elk, then that

Eva Sheie (30:55):
Elk is dead

Dr. Daniel (30:56):
elk is culled from the herd. And I mean, I don't have a philosophical reason to not hunt. I just didn't grow up with that. My dad was a fisherman. We talked about dad a little bit earlier. My dad was right-handed my granddad, my mom's father was my dad's fishing buddy, and he was left-handed. So my dad would cast over here, my grandfather would cast over here, and I got all the airwaves in between to cast my stuff. So that was the three of us that when I grew up fishing, it was the three of us that always went. And so I think that's from a young age, I was hooked, so to speak.

Eva Sheie (31:38):
And you never looked back?

Dr. Daniel (31:40):
Never looked back. In my TV room downstairs, I have a sailfish that my dad's dad caught. My dad trained in general surgery, like I said earlier, but he trained in Miami, Florida, and so they went out and caught sailfish all the time. So my granddad mounted a sailfish that he caught. I have that on one wall. I've got my dad's 10 pound bass that he caught when I was with him one day on the other wall. And then I still have that blank wall for where my trophy fish is going to go. I haven't gotten that one yet, so I'll keep working.

Eva Sheie (32:15):
Do you know what it is?

Dr. Daniel (32:16):
Oh, I don't know.

Eva Sheie (32:17):
What's it going to be?

Dr. Daniel (32:17):
I don't know. We'll see.

Eva Sheie (32:19):
Dunno yet. When I was growing up, my grandpa had a mounted head of a muskie in the basement, and that thing was so scary. It gave us nightmares.

Dr. Daniel (32:30):
Those teeth.

Eva Sheie (32:32):
Yeah, it was a, he fished in Lake Michigan.

Dr. Daniel (32:36):
Is that where you grew up?

Eva Sheie (32:37):
No, I grew up in Minnesota and every kid in Minnesota grows up fishing. But then,

Dr. Daniel (32:43):
Yeah, of course

Eva Sheie (32:44):
My mom is the one who's from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which is on Lake Michigan. So lots of muskies and lake trout. And they would go out and come back with these huge halls, just like hundreds and hundreds of fish and all those pictures from the fifties and sixties. Okay. Let's pivot. Your med spa is called the spa side, and I feel like I made the story up in my mind that you didn't know what to call it, so you just were like, they're on that other side of the office. So we just call it over there on the spa side and that it stuck.

Dr. Daniel (33:18):
It kind of stuck. So it's interesting, I don't know if you were at all involved in the early logo years, but the name of the practice is Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, APS, and there's a certain font that we used for that. And then with the spa side, all I had to do was transpose those letters a little bit and took APS into SPA and use the same font. And it seemed to have some nice parallel structure to me. I mean, that was pleasing the way my brain works with that stuff. But yeah, I think what you said is exactly right. We just called it the spa side, and we've expanded that. In 2018, I started a men's medi spa that's called the Guy Side. So we have the spa side, which is primarily really for anyone, but primarily for women. And then we have the guy side, which has more male oriented treatments and different machines and lasers and that kind of stuff. They do overlap a lot, but we decorated the guy side and nice browns and leathers and different photographs and things that are more male oriented.

(34:37):
But I think the med spa side has been really amazingly fun for me. The changes that have happened in the 25 years that I've had the med spa here mean it's night and day. 90% of the processes that are over there we didn't even have at all when I was training. And you can do so much non-surgically now with fat freezing, muscle building, the skin resurfacing, brown spots, microdermabrasions, all the different microneedling. There's no reason somebody shouldn't try to go visit the spa side because there's really something for everybody there. We've gotten two new lasers in the last couple of weeks, a new hair removal laser, and then what's called a BBL Moxie. It's a broad based light, broadband light and resurfacing lasers, and we're trying to keep current, don't want to be the first one on the bandwagon, but I never want to be the last one either.

(35:40):
So I do think we stay really cutting edge with the techniques and processes that we have currently. I've got three injectors, two physician injectors and an RN injector that has been doing cosmetic injections for nearly 20 years. One of the physicians is an MD, one is a naturopath. And so there's no place, maybe even in Oregon that has that well-trained of a series of cosmetic injectors. And then with the certified advanced estheticians that we have, these folks are amazing. My main CAE has been with me for 14 years, and just as he's like the rock for the office. The volcanoes could be spewing and the nuclear bombs could be falling, and he's just like this all the time.

Eva Sheie (36:32):
That's the RN?

Dr. Daniel (36:33):
Yeah, no, he's the certified advanced aesthetician.

Eva Sheie (36:37):
Oh, aesthetician. That's very unusual to have a male aesthetician.

Dr. Daniel (36:44):
Yeah. Yeah, he's fantastic. And he is kind of the rock for the practice. On the spa side, the way we look at it initially, I would say when I first came to town, the spa side, I had one laser hair removal laser, and we did some facials and my first aesthetician did waxing, did eyebrows. I mean it was more of a loss leader than anything, just to get people to feel comfortable coming into the office. But it still fit a niche, it still fit a need for the patients. And now I think the main focus is to try to educate patients on the myriad of different procedures that we do have available. We looked into it a couple of years ago, and I think there's probably the number is maybe 32, 33 different procedures that we have on the spa side now and various different levels of whether it's machines or energy devices or facials or injectables. It's really been a mainstay of my surgical side because if I'm doing facelifts, for example, and the skin's still weathered or environmentally challenged so to speak, then we can add that after, we can do it before. So it is a good marriage of the surgical and non-surgical in today's plastic surgery cosmetic practice for me.

Eva Sheie (38:17):
Is there anything new happening on the surgical side?

Dr. Daniel (38:21):
I've been at this a long time. I've developed techniques that absolutely work that give long lasting results. I mean, I always say for me to take any patient to surgery, surgery has to fulfill three main goals. We want it, number one, to be safe. We number two want it to be gorgeous, which is why I do nothing but elective cosmetic surgery. But number three, I want it to last a long time. I don't want to do techniques that have to be revisited. And so I think the techniques that I have mostly developed over the years fit all three of those. They're natural looking, they're long lasting. And so as far as me bringing in some new fancy technique, I'm really happy with what I do now. The new techniques that I see at some of the meetings are truly spectacular, but they're a lot of times little fringy for me, meaning that they're a little experimental.

(39:22):
They haven't been around long enough for me to really feel comfortable with that. And so as far as patients coming in wanting to have some new deal, that's probably not going to happen in my practice. Not that I've got my head stuck in the sand and I'm digging my heels in against progress. I mean, I stay current on all the CMEs, I go to all the meetings. When there is a new twist or a new difference or a new thing, then yeah, that's what we do. But I'm very happy, very comfortable with where I am in my practice. My OR is never tense. There's never any issues really. I mean my OR is amazingly fun to work in. It's funny, Catherine said the main thing that I would like most about being out of residency training is that I'd have control of the music in the operating room. And that's true. I mean, I am such a music guy. I listen to music. I don't know that I could operate without it actually. But I think that being comfortable with the procedures that I do, not ever testing the limits of a patient, not ever crossing my fingers and hoping that it works, that makes me comfortable at home and helps me to be able to sleep at night.

Eva Sheie (40:52):
So for you to bring something new in into the or kind of a big deal, you'd have to be really sure. And I want to ask you about the new Motiva breast implants and how you're feeling about those.

Dr. Daniel (41:05):
Yeah, again, being pretty much in the forefront of technology. I do think those implants are going to be amazing.

Eva Sheie (41:14):
Very exciting.

Dr. Daniel (41:15):
Yeah, it is.

Eva Sheie (41:16):
What have we not covered that you think is important for patients to know about you?

Dr. Daniel (41:21):
I think the patients need to know that they will be people in my office and not just a tummy tuck or not just a facelift. They are actual human beings to me as much as I want to be a human being to them and they're going to get this type of personal attention when they come to my office.

Eva Sheie (41:44):
Could you tell us a little about what your consultation is like?

Dr. Daniel (41:49):
Well, I've got an amazing surgery side manager/MA that helps me. And like I said earlier, I mean top to bottom employees feel, I think the same way about the patients as I do. So she would meet with them first. I always go into the room, I have to find something that's not what they're there for. That's not tense. I mean, it's difficult for a lot of people to come in. And so I try to break the ice every time with something. Maybe it's just their email address that's so funny address, or maybe it's where they're from. And the fact that I got lost there coming back from a fishing trip sometime or whatever it is. I've said it a few times, but I mean, I wanted them to feel personal attention and I want to give that to them. But the consultations are very detailed.

(42:48):
Ultimately, you've got to do an exam, which is always the tense part for a lot of patients. But my surgery side manager/MA, she does the photography for us. That's an important part of the record. And then ultimately, I try to get 'em back in their regular clothes if it's a body evaluation as soon as possible so that then we can talk in a little more comfortable environment between the two of us. So I'm in the room, I'm out of the room, and then I'm back in the room and then I'm out of the room. And then the patient care coordinator, she's spectacular human being a great person. And then they'll meet with the patient care coordinator to go over scheduling if they're ready to schedule. But certainly some of the financial things too. But I would say the average new patient consult is anywhere between 30 and 45 minutes, depending.

(43:44):
There's some people that want to talk about their face and their chin and their eyes and their shoulders and their back and their toes, and we will do that. Nothing's ever rushed. I don't want anybody to ever feel like they're rushed. But I do think that in general, the consultation process is streamlined enough that not uncommonly, I'll see many times eight or 10 new patient consults a day, in between normal patient follow-ups. So my schedule a little bit about my schedule. I operate three days a week, operate on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. I'm in the clinic on Thursdays all day on Thursdays. There's some buffer room in there for little blips on that schedule.

Eva Sheie (44:33):
I think the answer to the question we all want to know is what do you do when you're going in and out of the room? What are you doing when you're out of the room?

Dr. Daniel (44:42):
Well, I might be seeing another patient for just a recheck or there's always a pile of something in my desk I can work on. There's not that much time between. It doesn't take too long to have people take off a exam gown and put their clothes back on.

Eva Sheie (44:59):
No, I thought maybe you were doing dancing tiktoks in the hallway. No, not you?

Dr. Daniel (45:05):
Yeah, maybe not. But we do print off their pictures. I use the pictures for show and tell a lot of people, when you're always looking at yourself in the mirror, you're always seeing the mirror image. And until you see a picture of yourself and analyze it, it's now the way other people see you. And so it's a little different then if it's maybe the back, the lower back. If I'm doing liposuction there, people don't normally see that there's not a lot of wasted space with regards to time between patients. We're pretty efficient. But at the end of the day, some days, I mean, as everybody knows, some days are better than others. I mean, but it's rare that we're wiped out. At the end of the day, I work out with a trainer at his gym, it's a training gym, and I work out on Monday nights and Thursday nights. So I can't be totally wiped out when I go down there to work out with that guy. And that's part of the Wednesdays are my mental health, my workouts for my mental health, the music and the ORs, my mental health. Not that I need a lot of help with mental health, but I think those are the things that keep me going.

Eva Sheie (46:20):
Sounds like it's pretty innate for you. What kind of optimist were you? What was the diagnosis?

Dr. Daniel (46:27):
Hopeless optimist.

Eva Sheie (46:28):
Hopeless optimist. It's perfect. It's perfect. If someone's listening today and they want to find out more about you or reach out, where should they look?

Dr. Daniel (46:39):
Well, if pretty easy to find me in Eugene, Oregon, DrLeeBDaniel.com. We do all the other social medias as well. So pretty simple for somebody that's even peripherally savvy to track us down. We do TikTok stuff, obviously Facebook stuff, Instagram things.

Eva Sheie (46:58):
Or just go to Hayward Field and walk what direction?

Dr. Daniel (47:00):
And I'll find you. Yeah, it's straight up hill.

Eva Sheie (47:03):
Just start yelling and he'll come outside.

Dr. Daniel (47:04):
Straight up the hill from Hayward Field.

Eva Sheie (47:10):
That's great. Thank you so much Dr. Daniel.

Dr. Daniel (47:12):
This has been a lot of fun. Really, really nice to reconnect with you.

Eva Sheie (47:16):
You too. Thank you.

Dr. Daniel (47:18):
Hopefully many more in the future.

Eva Sheie (47:20):
I hope so.

Dr. Daniel (47:21):
Thanks Eva. Appreciate it.

Eva Sheie (47:22):
If you are considering making an appointment or are on your way to meet this doctor, be sure to let them know you them on the Meet The Doctor podcast. Check the show notes for 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 MeettheDoctorpodcast.com. Meet the Doctor is Made with Love in Austin, Texas and is a production of The Axis, theaxis.io.