when I was young I really hit its goal I
just wanted to get out I did not I
wanted in real world I wanted to get out
of it I did not have any plan but I just
thought I wanted to get out and when you
contrast that more than thirty years
later of who I am today
a surgeon someone who spent more than
almost 15 60 years trying to achieve
their goal of being the surgeon to being
you know who I am
people always ask me did you always want
to be a surgeon well the truth is I
actually never thought about being a
doctor when I was young I hated school I
wanted out I was a social misfit I
wasn’t popular I wasn’t athletic that’s
eight sixteen I actually graduated from
high school and I went to work at a real
estate office but broker there saw in me
you know important attributes he saw you
know inspiration he saw someone he was
interested that had it was hard working
that had passion that had dedication
everyone in this room has someone that
they’ve met that made a life-changing
impact and this person changed my life
and there are three things you know find
a passion that inspires you make
yourself the best in the world
what you do and make sure what you do
makes a difference in of those people’s
lives that it helps you those lives and
those have been important throughout my
whole career but he brought me in and he
had a passion and you know what I was
really good at what I did because it was
the first time in my life that was
actually interested in something and I I
did really well by the time I was in my
early 20s I
had everything that people thought were
important in life all the aspirations
that you you think you want but you know
I wanted more I felt like I wanted
something else I wanted to make a
difference in the world in other
people’s lives it was the first time
that I realized that I needed to find my
niche and I think all of us here you
need to find what is your niche what is
most important what can you do to be
best in the world so the broker I worked
with he had a son-in-law who was a
surgeon he had a surgery center and a
practice and he didn’t administrator so
he offered me the job and I took it and
I I would sit there and that office I
had this big stack of Records and
insurance and all those boring stuffs
and and right across the hall from my
office was was a surgery suite and I
took there never liked and you know I’d
be like looking in trying to check it
out and I’m sure it was completely
obvious because it wasn’t that long
before they’re like hey and idea want to
just watch a surgery was like yeah sure
and so I had to tell you it was super
cold I mean the first time I put on
Scrubs and a mask and walked in that or
was awesome
and I sat in the corner and I’m like all
excited and the first case was he was
actually operating on the joint of a big
toe and you know when you get a chicken
and you have the drum you like pop it
and it’s like that ball of all the
tennis I saw it was just like it was
like I know I came really close throwing
up and I price didn’t tell you that the
first time I watched surgery I almost
threw up but but it is yeah I didn’t and
clearly I got past it but it was really
cool and after up teen times of hanging
out there and sitting in that office and
watching surgeries he asked me he’s like
hey do you want to get trained so you
can scrub and help me and so that’s
another example so I had their real
estate who guy who was a huge benefit he
was a huge event church in my life and
then I have a surgeon who offers this to
me
and and those are catalysts in my life
that changed my life forever
and so now I have the skill and I’m able
to help I’m finally helping patients I’m
finally doing what I want to do I’m
operating like you have a problem and
you fix it and it’s such a great feeling
and that was when I knew that I wanted
to do what I wanted to do and I decided
you know I wanted to go to the surgery
so again how did I end up here well I
decided to go to medical school and it
wasn’t like a I’m going to medical
school at 28 it turns out you know I I
did I did in high school I had an MBA I
had a bachelor’s all in Business
Administration you know I wanna me does
not count as a science for medical
school not so much neither does
marketing accounting any of that so it
was in another two years of going back
to college dreaded school which I hated
to get the prerequisites and no one can
ever say that it’s easy to obtain your
goals in life
Willian us we all know you’ve got to
work hard you got to work every day it’s
a challenge and there’s a million things
those from one up in your path that
prevent you from getting your goals so
when I finished I had a plan finally my
life of a plan I was going to do
residency got accepted at Mayo Clinic
which is all someone’s gonna do five
years there and then when I finished
there I was doing two years at Baylor MD
Anderson of chest surgery and the the
problem was when I finished the funding
for my job didn’t go through so I didn’t
have a job so I needed an another year
to do something and fortunately you can
say destiny you can save divine
intervention do the opportunity whatever
are you believe in luck
but there was a position
UCLA and at UCLA I got this fellowship
for a year I had this incredible mentor
when I was in surgery that that said to
me you know gone find a niche find
something in your career that you love
to do and then make yourself better than
anybody else in that profession and
everything else will fall into place
it’ll be fine yeah and he it’s right so
at UCLA I found my niche just all
deformities practice I’d never heard of
it never seen it turns out you know what
won and 400 to 500 people have it
everyone in this room probably knows
somebody that has pecked us
the thing is pectus patients they don’t
show their chests they don’t want to
show their chests so you don’t know and
it’s it’s very simple it’s it’s a
congenital abnormality that as the chest
grows instead of coming out it collapses
in and it can be very degrees like it
can incorporate the whole upper sternum
down it could just be the bottom part so
it looks like like a cereal bowl but it
affects people’s lives and even when it
looks really mild it can compress the
heart below and cause disabling symptoms
so practice patients many of them are
very self-conscious about the way they
look so that there’s this classic you
know hunting not all them but some of
them hunched over so that their shirt
doesn’t tuck in and show they don’t go
to beaches they don’t go to places that
let themselves be seen and from a
physiologic standpoint even a simple
task like walking up the stairs they’re
short of breath they’re tachycardic
you know they when they try to exercise
they can’t breathe you know the
they’re just choking they’re strangling
they feel like their hearts gonna beat
out of the chests to come out and you
know it’s a combination there’s this
huge psychological component along with
the physiologic and you know this was so
intriguing to me I learned all about
this disorder so I put a few images and
on your on your left is a normal CT scan
so you have this rounded chest and the
right arrow points or the heart so it’s
plenty of room then the right is a
pectus patient and so as it chest
compresses inward it distorts the heart
it completely compresses the right side
of the heart in some patients it’s so
deep that on this one’s a side view you
can see the spine and the chest it
almost pinches our chest in half so at
UCLA I got the tremendous opportunity to
work with a surgeon named dr. funke’s
Rudin at the time he was one of the
world famous he was one of the greatest
practice surgeons it’s something I’d
never heard of and so every week I would
operate with him and we would repair
these defects it was a huge surgery and
I mean you open the whole chest and do
all this stuff and I’m gonna show some
pictures that are graphic because I
really want you guys to understand what
the surgery entailed but if you’re
sensitive turn your head away don’t look
you’d literally take all the muscles off
the chest and you cut out all the pieces
of part llege they were abnormal all
along to lift them up and do them out
and so I you know I finished at UCLA
a year later than I was planned went
back to mio and I started my practice I
have a first assist named Jesse that has
been with me now 15 years and he and I
we were doing these procedure we were
doing in the traditional way we were
like sewing it all up and cut them off
and patients are doing really well but
it’s like there’s got to be a better way
to do this you know there’s so much room
for improvement in technique in in pain
and how patients recover and and in
Cosme says brandon we were doing this so
you could breathe and work out but you
also want to look good dr. das he was a
pediatric surgeon he developed a
procedure for kids where instead of
cutting all this cartilage out well
let’s just put a brace just like braces
I mean why would you pull all your teeth
find out just the braces and straighten
them and so he would insert these metal
bars underneath like braces and
straighten the chest over a period of
two or three years and they pull the
braces out it’s working great patients
were doing great everybody thought it
was great but for older patient paints
it’s like 16 or so not so much I mean
you know there was a few surgeons that
tried it they published a lot of
complications or issues because you know
the adult chest is much more calcified
it’s stiff so again my principles you
know find something that really
interests you find a passion what
inspires you find a niche figure out how
to be the best in the world at what you
do and make sure that what you do is
actually helping people I put this photo
in for reason it’s
my prejudices my kid my son is it’s when
he was really young he was driving this
go-kart and he’s got his glasses upside
down and he’s pedal-to-the-metal
full-blast and his cousins looking at
him like he’s lost his mind and that’s
how I felt so when I started doing this
I got a lot of controversy
you know I people I can tell you I would
go to medical meetings and I mean there
would be a lineup of people you know
that would be yelling at me and saying
you should not be doing this and when
the surgeons were standing there
watching me drive by saying you
shouldn’t do that
it was patients his patients like Doug
was here tonight that were part of my
first patient group that let me innovate
that said I was like you know what
there’s got to be a better way we had
this practice where we weren’t cutting
up the whole chest and requiring it to
heal we were just putting braces in and
the way we did that was we leveraged
technology so Jesse and I figured out a
way for all of the things that they said
you couldn’t do chest is too stiff chest
is too big just as the above above we
figured out a way to make it work so we
use this crane and we put this the clamp
around the sternum we cranked it out so
when the chest one lift we forced it out
with this crane it’s too heavy so we did
shorter multiple bars so we stacked them
just like a roof like you would do beams
for a roof we put multiple bars the ribs
face of the adults it’s not strong
enough to support all the weight and all
the pressure or these bars it well we
use a special orthopedic suture that we
wrap the ribs around and we held it so
we can hold the bars in place it’s too
painful patients can’t do it hurts too
much well doc your reps you know they
developed this it’s actually like a ball
full of local numbing medicine and they
have these catheters like soaker hose
that we tunneled up on the sides a
little piece of spaghetti and they
dripped numbing medicine so that I mean
patients were out the day after surgery
they were walking around I mean two days
out they’re out of surgery and it was
awesome
[Applause]
it’s also about you know getting the
word out there and there were so many
patients that wanted a better technique
and they were like you know I need this
fixed and they’re you know and everyone
oh you have to either and you have to
arrive at you have to ravage so how do
you get the word out well we got really
fortunate we leverage technology so
YouTube was just becoming popular back
then and we made a video and we showed
how we did it and we had patients
talking about how great it was and
they’re like you know walking around
after surgery awesome and we put that
out there and you know it was
international
everybody can see what you did and you
know more than a thousand patients later
you know we’re one of the top centers in
the world I’m one of the top surgeons
for adults and in the United States and
it you know it was great it was
wonderful
I discovered my niche I found something
I wanted to do it was awesome it’s great
what I do is great and I’ve met so many
wonderful people and been involved in so
many lies and you really have the
ability to make lives graders it’s so so
great what I do I think half this crowd
are my patients they are the superheroes
so many people tell me I’m a superhero
I’m a catalyst the the people in my
lives have made me a catalyst I mean
they made me able to do but these guys
are awesome
and they’re crying they’re making me cry
[Applause]
I mean I’ll only talk about a few and
trust me if you want to talk to him
they’re all there and you can you can
get lots of stories but Adam was one of
my original patients
he has since probably has one of the
number one websites in the United States
and the US so Adams been like critical
and inpatient information
William when I first saw him he is one
of the top advocates in practice
education in the United States the first
day I met William in my office he
wouldn’t even look at me in the eye he
wouldn’t and so he he just finished his
Half Ironman and he’s training for his
full Ironman I mean these guys are doing
things that you would never imagine I
mean it changes their lives it changes
like I fixed them I make them so they
can breathe so they can exercise so they
can do things but but they take that and
they do great things they move forward I
mean it’s it’s so amazing it’s so crazy
Michael are you Michael they are he’s
now and it’s following my lead he’s in
the midst of this journey to try to go
back to medical school and help people I
also realize beyond surgery is how
important mentorship is how important we
all are we do not realize how many lives
we touch and how much opportunity the
earth there is to influence others to to
be a catalyst to give them a push
forward and there’s so many people I
mean Rebecca came to me as a patient and
she was all about patient education so
at Mayo actually hired her to do an
internship with me and she spent a
summer and she she did a whole series of
videos following a patient from the
minute they walk into Mayo to the
fitment after their surgery and so it’s
a whole experience of educating patients
and what to expect and yeah I mean it’s
been great and she’s becoming the best
in what she does
she’s branched off and long gone and
flying and find something you really are
passionate about find something you like
something find something you enjoy enjoy
find a niche and then work hard I mean
make yourself the best and then think
about things innovate move that field
for and make what you do better make
yourself the best in the world and you
know everything will fall in place in
your life there’s no way that you won’t
help other people doing what you do just
by having your life and enjoying it and
and making things better I I thank
everybody for being here my name is dawn
doors is key I’m a surgeon and this is
practices in my life
just wanted to get out I did not I
wanted in real world I wanted to get out
of it I did not have any plan but I just
thought I wanted to get out and when you
contrast that more than thirty years
later of who I am today
a surgeon someone who spent more than
almost 15 60 years trying to achieve
their goal of being the surgeon to being
you know who I am
people always ask me did you always want
to be a surgeon well the truth is I
actually never thought about being a
doctor when I was young I hated school I
wanted out I was a social misfit I
wasn’t popular I wasn’t athletic that’s
eight sixteen I actually graduated from
high school and I went to work at a real
estate office but broker there saw in me
you know important attributes he saw you
know inspiration he saw someone he was
interested that had it was hard working
that had passion that had dedication
everyone in this room has someone that
they’ve met that made a life-changing
impact and this person changed my life
and there are three things you know find
a passion that inspires you make
yourself the best in the world
what you do and make sure what you do
makes a difference in of those people’s
lives that it helps you those lives and
those have been important throughout my
whole career but he brought me in and he
had a passion and you know what I was
really good at what I did because it was
the first time in my life that was
actually interested in something and I I
did really well by the time I was in my
early 20s I
had everything that people thought were
important in life all the aspirations
that you you think you want but you know
I wanted more I felt like I wanted
something else I wanted to make a
difference in the world in other
people’s lives it was the first time
that I realized that I needed to find my
niche and I think all of us here you
need to find what is your niche what is
most important what can you do to be
best in the world so the broker I worked
with he had a son-in-law who was a
surgeon he had a surgery center and a
practice and he didn’t administrator so
he offered me the job and I took it and
I I would sit there and that office I
had this big stack of Records and
insurance and all those boring stuffs
and and right across the hall from my
office was was a surgery suite and I
took there never liked and you know I’d
be like looking in trying to check it
out and I’m sure it was completely
obvious because it wasn’t that long
before they’re like hey and idea want to
just watch a surgery was like yeah sure
and so I had to tell you it was super
cold I mean the first time I put on
Scrubs and a mask and walked in that or
was awesome
and I sat in the corner and I’m like all
excited and the first case was he was
actually operating on the joint of a big
toe and you know when you get a chicken
and you have the drum you like pop it
and it’s like that ball of all the
tennis I saw it was just like it was
like I know I came really close throwing
up and I price didn’t tell you that the
first time I watched surgery I almost
threw up but but it is yeah I didn’t and
clearly I got past it but it was really
cool and after up teen times of hanging
out there and sitting in that office and
watching surgeries he asked me he’s like
hey do you want to get trained so you
can scrub and help me and so that’s
another example so I had their real
estate who guy who was a huge benefit he
was a huge event church in my life and
then I have a surgeon who offers this to
me
and and those are catalysts in my life
that changed my life forever
and so now I have the skill and I’m able
to help I’m finally helping patients I’m
finally doing what I want to do I’m
operating like you have a problem and
you fix it and it’s such a great feeling
and that was when I knew that I wanted
to do what I wanted to do and I decided
you know I wanted to go to the surgery
so again how did I end up here well I
decided to go to medical school and it
wasn’t like a I’m going to medical
school at 28 it turns out you know I I
did I did in high school I had an MBA I
had a bachelor’s all in Business
Administration you know I wanna me does
not count as a science for medical
school not so much neither does
marketing accounting any of that so it
was in another two years of going back
to college dreaded school which I hated
to get the prerequisites and no one can
ever say that it’s easy to obtain your
goals in life
Willian us we all know you’ve got to
work hard you got to work every day it’s
a challenge and there’s a million things
those from one up in your path that
prevent you from getting your goals so
when I finished I had a plan finally my
life of a plan I was going to do
residency got accepted at Mayo Clinic
which is all someone’s gonna do five
years there and then when I finished
there I was doing two years at Baylor MD
Anderson of chest surgery and the the
problem was when I finished the funding
for my job didn’t go through so I didn’t
have a job so I needed an another year
to do something and fortunately you can
say destiny you can save divine
intervention do the opportunity whatever
are you believe in luck
but there was a position
UCLA and at UCLA I got this fellowship
for a year I had this incredible mentor
when I was in surgery that that said to
me you know gone find a niche find
something in your career that you love
to do and then make yourself better than
anybody else in that profession and
everything else will fall into place
it’ll be fine yeah and he it’s right so
at UCLA I found my niche just all
deformities practice I’d never heard of
it never seen it turns out you know what
won and 400 to 500 people have it
everyone in this room probably knows
somebody that has pecked us
the thing is pectus patients they don’t
show their chests they don’t want to
show their chests so you don’t know and
it’s it’s very simple it’s it’s a
congenital abnormality that as the chest
grows instead of coming out it collapses
in and it can be very degrees like it
can incorporate the whole upper sternum
down it could just be the bottom part so
it looks like like a cereal bowl but it
affects people’s lives and even when it
looks really mild it can compress the
heart below and cause disabling symptoms
so practice patients many of them are
very self-conscious about the way they
look so that there’s this classic you
know hunting not all them but some of
them hunched over so that their shirt
doesn’t tuck in and show they don’t go
to beaches they don’t go to places that
let themselves be seen and from a
physiologic standpoint even a simple
task like walking up the stairs they’re
short of breath they’re tachycardic
you know they when they try to exercise
they can’t breathe you know the
they’re just choking they’re strangling
they feel like their hearts gonna beat
out of the chests to come out and you
know it’s a combination there’s this
huge psychological component along with
the physiologic and you know this was so
intriguing to me I learned all about
this disorder so I put a few images and
on your on your left is a normal CT scan
so you have this rounded chest and the
right arrow points or the heart so it’s
plenty of room then the right is a
pectus patient and so as it chest
compresses inward it distorts the heart
it completely compresses the right side
of the heart in some patients it’s so
deep that on this one’s a side view you
can see the spine and the chest it
almost pinches our chest in half so at
UCLA I got the tremendous opportunity to
work with a surgeon named dr. funke’s
Rudin at the time he was one of the
world famous he was one of the greatest
practice surgeons it’s something I’d
never heard of and so every week I would
operate with him and we would repair
these defects it was a huge surgery and
I mean you open the whole chest and do
all this stuff and I’m gonna show some
pictures that are graphic because I
really want you guys to understand what
the surgery entailed but if you’re
sensitive turn your head away don’t look
you’d literally take all the muscles off
the chest and you cut out all the pieces
of part llege they were abnormal all
along to lift them up and do them out
and so I you know I finished at UCLA
a year later than I was planned went
back to mio and I started my practice I
have a first assist named Jesse that has
been with me now 15 years and he and I
we were doing these procedure we were
doing in the traditional way we were
like sewing it all up and cut them off
and patients are doing really well but
it’s like there’s got to be a better way
to do this you know there’s so much room
for improvement in technique in in pain
and how patients recover and and in
Cosme says brandon we were doing this so
you could breathe and work out but you
also want to look good dr. das he was a
pediatric surgeon he developed a
procedure for kids where instead of
cutting all this cartilage out well
let’s just put a brace just like braces
I mean why would you pull all your teeth
find out just the braces and straighten
them and so he would insert these metal
bars underneath like braces and
straighten the chest over a period of
two or three years and they pull the
braces out it’s working great patients
were doing great everybody thought it
was great but for older patient paints
it’s like 16 or so not so much I mean
you know there was a few surgeons that
tried it they published a lot of
complications or issues because you know
the adult chest is much more calcified
it’s stiff so again my principles you
know find something that really
interests you find a passion what
inspires you find a niche figure out how
to be the best in the world at what you
do and make sure that what you do is
actually helping people I put this photo
in for reason it’s
my prejudices my kid my son is it’s when
he was really young he was driving this
go-kart and he’s got his glasses upside
down and he’s pedal-to-the-metal
full-blast and his cousins looking at
him like he’s lost his mind and that’s
how I felt so when I started doing this
I got a lot of controversy
you know I people I can tell you I would
go to medical meetings and I mean there
would be a lineup of people you know
that would be yelling at me and saying
you should not be doing this and when
the surgeons were standing there
watching me drive by saying you
shouldn’t do that
it was patients his patients like Doug
was here tonight that were part of my
first patient group that let me innovate
that said I was like you know what
there’s got to be a better way we had
this practice where we weren’t cutting
up the whole chest and requiring it to
heal we were just putting braces in and
the way we did that was we leveraged
technology so Jesse and I figured out a
way for all of the things that they said
you couldn’t do chest is too stiff chest
is too big just as the above above we
figured out a way to make it work so we
use this crane and we put this the clamp
around the sternum we cranked it out so
when the chest one lift we forced it out
with this crane it’s too heavy so we did
shorter multiple bars so we stacked them
just like a roof like you would do beams
for a roof we put multiple bars the ribs
face of the adults it’s not strong
enough to support all the weight and all
the pressure or these bars it well we
use a special orthopedic suture that we
wrap the ribs around and we held it so
we can hold the bars in place it’s too
painful patients can’t do it hurts too
much well doc your reps you know they
developed this it’s actually like a ball
full of local numbing medicine and they
have these catheters like soaker hose
that we tunneled up on the sides a
little piece of spaghetti and they
dripped numbing medicine so that I mean
patients were out the day after surgery
they were walking around I mean two days
out they’re out of surgery and it was
awesome
[Applause]
it’s also about you know getting the
word out there and there were so many
patients that wanted a better technique
and they were like you know I need this
fixed and they’re you know and everyone
oh you have to either and you have to
arrive at you have to ravage so how do
you get the word out well we got really
fortunate we leverage technology so
YouTube was just becoming popular back
then and we made a video and we showed
how we did it and we had patients
talking about how great it was and
they’re like you know walking around
after surgery awesome and we put that
out there and you know it was
international
everybody can see what you did and you
know more than a thousand patients later
you know we’re one of the top centers in
the world I’m one of the top surgeons
for adults and in the United States and
it you know it was great it was
wonderful
I discovered my niche I found something
I wanted to do it was awesome it’s great
what I do is great and I’ve met so many
wonderful people and been involved in so
many lies and you really have the
ability to make lives graders it’s so so
great what I do I think half this crowd
are my patients they are the superheroes
so many people tell me I’m a superhero
I’m a catalyst the the people in my
lives have made me a catalyst I mean
they made me able to do but these guys
are awesome
and they’re crying they’re making me cry
[Applause]
I mean I’ll only talk about a few and
trust me if you want to talk to him
they’re all there and you can you can
get lots of stories but Adam was one of
my original patients
he has since probably has one of the
number one websites in the United States
and the US so Adams been like critical
and inpatient information
William when I first saw him he is one
of the top advocates in practice
education in the United States the first
day I met William in my office he
wouldn’t even look at me in the eye he
wouldn’t and so he he just finished his
Half Ironman and he’s training for his
full Ironman I mean these guys are doing
things that you would never imagine I
mean it changes their lives it changes
like I fixed them I make them so they
can breathe so they can exercise so they
can do things but but they take that and
they do great things they move forward I
mean it’s it’s so amazing it’s so crazy
Michael are you Michael they are he’s
now and it’s following my lead he’s in
the midst of this journey to try to go
back to medical school and help people I
also realize beyond surgery is how
important mentorship is how important we
all are we do not realize how many lives
we touch and how much opportunity the
earth there is to influence others to to
be a catalyst to give them a push
forward and there’s so many people I
mean Rebecca came to me as a patient and
she was all about patient education so
at Mayo actually hired her to do an
internship with me and she spent a
summer and she she did a whole series of
videos following a patient from the
minute they walk into Mayo to the
fitment after their surgery and so it’s
a whole experience of educating patients
and what to expect and yeah I mean it’s
been great and she’s becoming the best
in what she does
she’s branched off and long gone and
flying and find something you really are
passionate about find something you like
something find something you enjoy enjoy
find a niche and then work hard I mean
make yourself the best and then think
about things innovate move that field
for and make what you do better make
yourself the best in the world and you
know everything will fall in place in
your life there’s no way that you won’t
help other people doing what you do just
by having your life and enjoying it and
and making things better I I thank
everybody for being here my name is dawn
doors is key I’m a surgeon and this is
practices in my life
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