Joe Gryskiewicz, MD - Plastic Surgeon in Edina, Minnesota

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. Welcome to Meet the Doctor. My guest today is Dr. Joe Gryskiewicz, and I actually do know how to say his name, but most people don't. And he's a plastic surgeon, longtime plastic surgeon in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, which is of course where I'm from. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Joe. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (00:50):
Thanks. Yeah. I'm Dr. Joe Gryskiewicz and they usually call me Dr. Joe or Dr. G. 

Eva Sheie (00:55):
And, and I did say it wrong.

Dr. Gryskiewicz (00:57):
And I'm a board certified plastic surgeon. Well, you say it like my mother said it, so it's okay. 

Eva Sheie (01:01):
Oh, the Polish way? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (01:03):
Yeah. <laugh>. 

Eva Sheie (01:04):
But then there's the other Dr. Joe Griskowitz. And I said his right because he, I was gonna, 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (01:10):
That's how he says his name. 

Eva Sheie (01:12):
It is. And I was gonna say, do people still mix you up with the other Dr. Joe Griskowitz? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (01:16):
Oh yeah. When I go to the meetings and I'll get a registration form, it'll be his hotel room and it's like, no, no, I'm not staying in this hotel room. <laugh>. And there's <laugh> and I know that all Polish names look alike, but actually there's two letters different in our names. 

Eva Sheie (01:31):
Completely different. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (01:31):
Yeah. Right. He says Griskowitz, I say Gryskiewicz, but Yeah. But it's actually  Gyskiewicz in Polish, so whatever. 

Eva Sheie (01:39):
That's a lot of consonant clusters. Yep. Fun fact. I took Polish in grad school for fun. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (01:45):
Really? 

Eva Sheie (01:46):
Yeah. <laugh>. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (01:46):
Holy smokes. 

Eva Sheie (01:48):
Yeah. After I took Norwegian in college, then I went to grad school and took Polish, which was, has all turned out to be incredibly useful. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (01:55):
Wow. Been St. Olaf. Yeah. Norwegian. I could see that. <laugh>. 

Eva Sheie (02:00):
Yeah. You know, right. When you're a Norwegian kid in Minnesota, you get shipped off to Norwegian Camp <laugh>. I don't know if they had Polish camp, though. They might have. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (02:08):
Not that I know of, but I'll tell ya, St. Olaf is a really good school. If I had to pick one college where most of the people in my med school class came from, it was St. Olaf.

Eva Sheie (02:18):
Really? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (02:19):
Yeah. They were a pipeline to med school. 

Eva Sheie (02:21):
And did you go to med school at the University of Minnesota? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (02:23):
Yes. 

Eva Sheie (02:24):
Ah, were you originally from Minnesota? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (02:27):
Yes. Little town called St. Paul. 

Eva Sheie (02:29):
Oh yes. That other town. So have you ever really lived anywhere else with the Twin Cities? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (02:36):
Well, I did my training at the University of Wisconsin. So I lived in Madison for seven years. 

Eva Sheie (02:41):
Okay. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (02:42):
And since my grandpa and grandma were from there and I'd spent summers with them, I'd probably been probably been in Wisconsin for eight years of my life. I've been in South America for a good year of my life. And uh, and just the Twin Cities. 

Eva Sheie (02:55):
Where were your grandparents in Wisconsin?

Dr. Gryskiewicz (02:57):
Right in Madison. 

Eva Sheie (02:59):
Okay. Mine were in Sheboygan. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (03:00):
Oh yeah. Yeah. Getting up there.  

Eva Sheie (03:04):
Yeah. Brats and beer. And more Brats 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (03:07):
And curd. Don't forget cheese curds. 

Eva Sheie (03:09):
That's right. Yeah. So this isn't the usual conversation that I have on this podcast, but it's, it's fun. <laugh>. So you've been in practice for a while. Tell us how you got started and where were you in the beginning? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (03:27):
Oh yeah. I started 38 years ago and um, you know, I started in a little suburb of Minneapolis called Edina. Every day I need attention. And um, <laugh> 

(03:42)
Did a lot of reconstructive work and then gradually transitioned into cosmetic. And what got me into plastic surgery was I went on a mission trip down to Guatemala and saw these kids with cleft lips and clef palates. And I thought, oh, I really want to fix those. I want to do something for them. So that's what pushed me towards plastic surgery cuz it's so artistic. And so I've been going on mission trips since 1984, which was my senior year in residency. And then every year after that, when I was in practice to do the cleft lip and palate things. 

Eva Sheie (04:17):
Every year since then. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (04:19):
Yeah. Except until Covid and that caved it all in. 

Eva Sheie (04:23):
And now are you ever planning to go back again? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (04:24):
Sure, yeah. But uh, so far it hasn't recovered. 

Eva Sheie (04:29):
Oh no. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (04:30):
Yeah. I mean they're not, they, the hospital pretty much has not letting anybody back in right now. The big

Eva Sheie (04:36):
In Guatemala?

Dr. Gryskiewicz (04:37):
Well this, the hospital we're going to now is in Peru and uh, we went to Lima in a little town in the mountains called, or big town in the mountains called Arequipa, depending on how you wanna look at it. 

Eva Sheie (04:50):
So at what time of year do you usually go on that trip?

Dr. Gryskiewicz (04:53):
January. 

Eva Sheie (04:54):
Yeah. That's a good time to leave Minnesota.

Dr. Gryskiewicz (04:55):
Yeah. Good time to live Minnesota. Right.

Eva Sheie (04:57):
And it's nice down there at that time. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (04:59):
Yeah. It's not, it depends where you are. I mean in the mountains it's cold and in Lima it's really hot cuz you're at sea level in Lima and, and you know, higher altitude in the mountains. 

Eva Sheie (05:10):
Who goes on that trip with you? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (05:12):
Well, a whole bunch of doctors, anesthesiologists, nurses, surgeons from around the Twin Cities. 

Eva Sheie (05:18):
Is it organized through uh, like a non profit?

Dr. Gryskiewicz (05:20):
There's a lot of foundations that we've gone on with, but the current one for the last maybe 12 years that we've worked with is, um, San Francisco De Assis. So, St. Francis of Assisi so to speak. 

Eva Sheie (05:34):
Ah, got it. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (05:35):
Yeah. So they're organized. 

Eva Sheie (05:38):
So that, that's probably a nice counterbalance to Edina Housewives. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (05:42):
That's right. Suck fat and Edina and help kids with cleft lips in South America. 

Eva Sheie (05:47):
Okay. We're being a little bit Minnesotan with our humor here, which sometimes doesn't go over very well with non Minnesotans. And I, I actually kind of learned that the hard way that I would be a bit like, uh, straight faced and say something a little sarcastic and it just would go over like a lead balloon. But feeling very comfortable with you here. So in 38 years you've seen a lot of things change. And I, before we get to what's changed, kind of tell me about what your focus has been. Are you mostly body, mostly face, and what have you been passionate about procedure-wise over the years? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (06:26):
Well, I think the hardest surgery and plastic surgery and as far as I know, everybody agrees is rhinoplasty and that's my passion. 

Eva Sheie (06:34):
Definitely. What about revision rhinoplasty? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (06:38):
Yeah, a third of my patients are revisions, from uh, somewhere else. So if I do a hundred rhinoplasties, 33 of them are secondaries or tertiary or worse. And then second would be breast augmentation. Uh, I do more breast augmentations than anybody in Minnesota. Three times more than the second highest person. So that's probably the two main things. But you know, people come in, they want mommy makeovers and you know, they want implants but there's a lot of other stuff they want too to kind of go back to BC before children, that kind of thing.

Eva Sheie (07:14):
 Mm-hmm. How big is the team around you? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (07:16):
We have, uh, 14 employees in the office. 

Eva Sheie (07:20):
How many other providers? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (07:22):
I'm the only provider. 

Eva Sheie (07:24):
Oh. It's just you. So is there a med spa component or just, 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (07:28):
Yeah, so we've got people doing the lasers and the cool sculpting and all the facial skin treatments and so on. And then we got a big crew and we've got people that help us, help me in the operating room and yeah, we got a real nice team. It's a real warm, friendly family atmosphere. 

Eva Sheie (07:47):
When you kind of look back on the experiences you've had being in the same place, like in the beginning it was all surgery, there was no nonsurgical. So when you started, what kinds of people were coming to you and what was different about them then maybe than how they are now? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (08:07):
Oh. The expectations are much higher now. Especially in the last decade. You know, people come in and have seen things on the web and they want that, which uh, I think really helps. I mean I want everybody to gimme their wish pictures. I'm trying to read their mind. So I want 'em to show me, oh, I want cleavage. Okay, what does that mean to you? And let's look at some pictures and let's see if I can deliver or not. So it's, I think it's been really helpful and you can tell, uh, actually when patients come in and they haven't done any research, it's, it's actually a little more tedious to do the consult. It is cause you're just starting right at at square one. Whereas I'd much rather have a sophisticated, well-educated patient who knows what they want right off the bat. 

Eva Sheie (08:53):
Before social media, how did they do wish pics? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (08:57):
Oh they didn't. In fact it was frowned upon. I mean the teaching back then was if you bring in a picture of a nose that you want, the surgeon really should decline to do the surgery. It's just not, it's unrealistic and it's not gonna fly. And it's like, yeah, I kind of get that. I mean, you know, he gets people bring in a picture and it's like, 

Eva Sheie (09:18):
Well, only if the picture's unrealistic 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (09:19):
Exactly. Right. But that was the teaching. And I remember one morning my partner came to me and back then and he said, boy, this lady brought in a picture this morning. I'm supposed to do her nose job in like 30 minutes and I'm really feeling uncomfortable cuz I can't do this and you know, we're not supposed to do pictures. And I said, cancel her. See now I would've said, well let's talk to her about what you can and can't do in the picture. Yeah. So that was bad advice, but that's what we all did back then. So it's really changed and for the better I think. 

Eva Sheie (09:54):
I just heard a story about a surgeon who I know who's 92 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (09:58):
Really? 

Eva Sheie (09:59):
Yeah. Not working anymore. Obviously retired a while ago, like 15 years ago. But oh, we were talking about how did we do rhinoplasty consults before, we had iPads and computers and  um and visualization software.

Dr. Gryskiewicz (10:15):
Yeah. Imaging systems. Right. 

Eva Sheie (10:16):
Yeah. And what he did, I found this so fascinating cuz it spoke so highly of how he thought about patients was he would actually shoot their photos, their before photos at their consult and then bring them back two weeks later after having gone to the dark room, developed all the photos and then he would draw on the photos and show them what he was gonna do.

Dr. Gryskiewicz (10:36):
Exactly. 

Eva Sheie (10:36):
Yeah. And so their consults were two sessions, two weeks apart so that he could show instead of just tell, that was Merle Oleson who you made have known at some point in your career. And they, they told me that people always went, moved forward because they understood what was gonna happen. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (10:56):
Yeah. I've done the same, we do life size photographs and I draw on them. That was way back when. Yeah. 

Eva Sheie (11:02):
Yeah. Now you, what tools do you use now? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (11:04):
Now we use an imaging system by Touch MD and 

Eva Sheie (11:07):
Oh yes. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (11:07):
Drawing 'em and, and then they can look in their web account, you know, and show their significant other or somebody, their next door neighbor, whatever. What 

Eva Sheie (11:16):
I like to look at mine in there cuz I can see how much better my face looks over time. It's one of my favorite things about Touch MD I can go, oh look. Look how bad my skin used to be. I can show anybody I want at how much better it is. It's, yeah, good. It's pretty powerful. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (11:33):
Good. 

Eva Sheie (11:34):
Yeah. I love them. So you use Touch MD do you use any morphing software or is that sort of not how you think about it?

Dr. Gryskiewicz (11:41):
No, I draw, I draw with the Touch MD and really get down to what they want and you can add or subtract. 

Eva Sheie (11:48):
Oh that's great.

Dr. Gryskiewicz (11:49):
And the same's true for breast surgery and you can, you know, analyze everything with the Touch MD uh, when I come in the room, I, you know, I'm trying to get to know the patient and so on. We do that. Our consults are up to two hours. They're not on a conveyor belt to the operating room where they're in and out the door in 20 minutes. And so we really take our time and before I examine their breasts, if they want breast augmentation, you know, we'll analyze everything on the screen and I think that's a lot more comfortable for the patient so that the exam is just a little measuring and breast exam rather than saying, oh this nipples higher. And you know, and when you're looking in right in the face, I think that's really uncomfortable. So better to do it on the screen and I think it objectifies it and yeah, it works well. 

Eva Sheie (12:38):
Yeah, I agree. I also felt like it's more scientific if you're looking at images instead of 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (12:45):
Exactly. Yeah. And that plus you can draw perfect horizontal lines and if one side's higher, one side's bigger, can pick all that stuff up on the imaging. 

Eva Sheie (12:55):
Well, as a patient looking down is not the same as looking at a photo. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (12:59):
Yeah, right. Good point. 

Eva Sheie (13:01):
And we have even ways of looking at ourselves that aren't always, you know, like you look in in the mirror in a way that makes your face look pretty. You never go like,

Dr. Gryskiewicz (13:09):
Yeah. <laugh>. 

Eva Sheie (13:12):
So yeah, I think, uh, that your point about it being objective is really valuable. Having been in the Twin Cities now for 38 years, do you start to see generational patients? Like people coming back?

Dr. Gryskiewicz (13:27):
Oh sure. Oh, I'll, in fact, I have a whole folder on my phone with people's permission of mother daughters 

Eva Sheie (13:33):
Oh wow. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (13:33):
That I've operated on. Okay. And then, uh, and then I can look at it once in a while and just feel really good about what I'm doing. 

Eva Sheie (13:41):
Yeah. So are most of your patients coming from other patients at this point? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (13:47):
I actually get a lot of patients from RealSelf. I get a lot of patients from online Google the website and then word of mouth. 

Eva Sheie (13:57):
Yep. The trifecta. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (13:58):
Yep. 

Eva Sheie (13:59):
<laugh>. Is there anything on the technology or the science front that you're particularly excited about these days? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (14:07):
Yeah, I think there's um, a new device for breast implant delivery that's much more intuitive and less expensive that's coming out cuz I was involved in hot topics, running hot topics, meaning for about 15 years. And there's uh, fat injector processing all in one device coming out. Uh, I think at the beginning of next year, 2024? Yeah. Maybe December 23. January 24. Yeah. 

Eva Sheie (14:34):
Did hot Topics already happen? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (14:35):
Yeah, it happened Thursday. Thursday, Thursday afternoon. Right. 

Eva Sheie (14:41):
Yeah. And those were the two highlights. Those things? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (14:45):
I'd say that's what's coming. Yeah. Yeah. And I wasn't at the whole meeting, but I have my own dissection for rhinoplasty. That's a four hour course that I taught also Thursday afternoon with my faculty. 

Eva Sheie (14:58):
So what do you want patients to know about you before they come to see you? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (15:02):
Oh, and I get excited about helping people out. I mean, that's what gets me outta bed in the morning is changing somebody's life. I mean, it's a, it's like there is no other job like that. It's just such a kick. 

Eva Sheie (15:16):
If someone, uh, is interested in coming to see you and is listening to the podcast today, where would you point them? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (15:21):
Uh, just go online and check my website or look up Dr. Joe. Or, or if you, if you spell g r in Minneapolis, you'll get my name will come up. So like Grrr I guess Not for Gray. <laugh>. Not for Gray. Just for Gryskiewicz <laugh>, 

Eva Sheie (15:37):
What's your website address? 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (15:39):
It's uh, tc plastic surgery.com. So for Twin cities. 

Eva Sheie (15:45):
Yep. Well, thank you for sharing, uh, a little bit of yourself with us today. I really appreciate it Dr. Joe.

Dr. Gryskiewicz (15:51):
Yeah, thanks Eva, it was really fun. 

Eva Sheie (15:53):
Good to see you. 

Dr. Gryskiewicz (15:53):
Yeah, good to see you again. 

Eva Sheie (15:59):
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 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 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.