Shannon O’Brien, MD - Plastic Surgeon in Portland, Oregon

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

Thank you so much.

So where should we start? Why don't we go with, tell us about yourself.

Oh, that's a good one. So I live in Portland, Oregon now. I grew up in Texas, though I have been here for a long time now. I've got two great kids and a husband who's extremely supportive and those relationships are just the core of my life.

And your husband's a surgeon too, right?

He is. He's a colorectal surgeon here in town as well.

So what's your dinner table conversation?

We try to avoid medicine as much as possible. Our kids are old enough now that they carry a lot of the drama conversations, what's going on in their world, what did everybody have for lunch, all that good stuff. But yeah, I have always wanted the dinner conversation not to be too much medicine, although of course it works its way into your life.

Do you guys actually still have dinner together every night?

I can't say we've ever had dinner together every night, ever, but we do definitely as a family of four get together. I don't know, three or four times a week for dinner.

Oh, that's great. I don't know if I even do that.

When the kids were younger, it was definitely less. But now that everybody kind of gets home from all their activities around the same time and so we can kind of fall in together.

Do you like to cook or do you pick something up on the way home?

So I actually like to cook, but not during the week. It's just too much. We have an amazing nanny who's been with us since before my youngest was even born. So she's been with us for almost 14 years, and so she does some meal prep for us and she's a good cook and is really good about making sure things don't go bad in the fridge and all that good stuff. So she's really as much family now as anything, but she really helps with those weekday meals.

It's so hard, I think, to not feel guilty about it, about not being able to do everything. But really, I think at some point you start trading things like cooking for spending actual time with your kids.

Right. Yeah. That was the sort of decision, especially as the kids got older and are off at school, she's had some time during the day to help us out with those things so that when we do come home, it really isn't hectic. Throw random things together and we can all sort of sit and chat for a few minutes before homework or whatever else.

I know, I remember when I chose giving up television because something had to go.

Yeah. Right. I very easily, although it's a challenge with work and needing to be present on social media and what have you, the thing that went for me was actually Facebook. I realized how much, just turning off notifications for me was a big deal, but then I also realized I have to sort of maintain that stuff too. So it's a little bit of a balance, but it was one of the things that freed up some of those minutes.

It doesn't add anything. I'm sure you don't miss it at all.

I didn't. It was a remarkable how, I just didn't realize that when I wasn't getting those notifications, I wasn't checking. I wasn't sitting there scrolling for suddenly 30 minutes are gone and it's like 30 minutes that I didn't have. So anyway.

So true. Such a huge problem. So I want to ask you how you got from Texas to Oregon, because a lot of us got to Texas as fast as we could, but you ended up somewhere else.

And I still love Texas. Basically. When I finished medical school, I went to residency in Cincinnati, Ohio at University of Cincinnati, and I did an integrated program there for six years. That's where I met my husband was while we were both residents. And then we kind of spread out a map when I was graduating in order to make sure that we both had jobs that worked for us. And in the end we looked at, talked to people from Florida all the way up to Oregon and at multiple places along the way. And this was the best fit for both of us. So this is where we landed. It's been a good place to raise our kids. We really enjoy the outdoors and I really don't like the rain. I like it when it's warm and sunny, but the other upsides have been really strong for us, so it's been good.

So did you both finish at the same time and then you had to decide we just had to pick a city where you could both work?

Not quite. He finished three years ahead of me, and so he was on staff at University of Cincinnati for three years and that was a good experience. He had good partners there. But in the end when we were trying to figure out what it is we wanted and where we wanted to live, what we wanted in the city that we were in, and I mean all the stuff we opted to move, it's been good. We're far from all of our families. I guess that's probably the biggest downside that and then the rain.

Was there anything that surprised guys about Portland when you got there?

I did not know how nice the people were going to be. It is just really good people and I don't know that we have time to talk about it, but I have some really early stories. I showed up pregnant, which was intentional, but when I got here, I had to establish care. My daughter's arrival in the world was a little dramatic. And so the people that came around us and encircled us with love and a Christmas tree at one point, because there was a snowstorm, we couldn't even get a Christmas tree and people put on their four-wheel drive, got us a tree, brought it to us. We had this baby who was just out of the NICU. It was crazy. And we had known them for four months or less. I mean, it was just an incredible community to walk into and it has stayed just that incredible, really, really good people.

That's nice. Moving across the country is never easy. And I think when your're doctor's in training, you have to move a lot.

Yeah, no, we have felt really fortunate both from a work setting, but just like I said, just the community's been good and it feels like a small town even though it's not small. We both grew up, my husband and I both grew up in larger cities for sure, but Portland, it's like your one connection away from so many people. It's an incredible web, which is also, if you don't mind, if you want to make those connections. And I'm super social, so it works for me.

It's a nice balance. I think you get all the benefits of being in a big city, but the good parts of being in what feels like a small town.

Right, right. Lots of good restaurants, but getting to know the people around you.

Now, how do you cope with the rain?

I mean, I work and then chasing the kids around takes a lot of time. And so whether it was raining or not, there's a lot of that. I have become much more weather tolerant. There are some great companies that sell some great all weather gear and you stock up on that and you just sort of go out and do things no matter what the weather, staying active, staying busy, and just sort of everybody's dealing with it. So it's not like it's your own little personal rain cloud. Everybody gets to share in that, so you just have to joke about it.

Got it. So ignore the rain, just stay busy?

Stay busy and go out. Tend to travel during the rainy seasons and hunker down at home in the summer when the weather is better here than just about anywhere else.

It's true. So tell me a little bit more about work and what your day-to-day is like now.

Yeah, so I do work every day, five days a week. My husband and I do take a half day off a week now, but I have a nice mix of my clinic and set my OR days are, every day is kind of full and every day is a little different. I do a broad spectrum of plastic surgery. I do a lot of facial procedures, but I still love breast body and some of my favorite things. And I do aesthetic and some reconstruction reductions still. And those things are all meaningful in their own way. I mean patients, whether they're coming for in a medically chaotic place where maybe they have cancer, maybe they're whatever, and you're kind of in this lifesaving, they're in this lifesaving mode. My role is to give hope and move forward and look forward to when this is going to be over. And I love that part about that and being part of that aspect of their journey. And then if somebody is insecure about something and you can make that better, it really does feel good to see people smiling.

Now you're in a group of four surgeons. Were you there from the beginning of Portland Plastic Surgery or did you join it later?

Yeah, I was there from the beginning. I was in a place where while my practice was good, I wanted to have some ownership in place. And so talked to a couple of other docs here in town and Portland Plastic Surgery Group became a thing.

Do you remember how you met your partners back then?

Yeah, so one of them, I arrived here and he and I were both studying for our oral boards at the same time. And we were in a study group with a couple of other plastic surgeons who were right out of training. And so I had been here for about five years before we started Portland Plastic Surgery group. So he and I had known each other for years after studying together. And then the other partner I actually talked to first before I even moved here, before we decided to move to Portland, because he had previously been in the practice that I was joining. And so I called just to see what that situation was like. And so we actually spoke before I even moved to Portland. So I had actually long relationships even though we didn't in plastic surgery, you're kind of everybody scattered out. But we had known each other for a long time and they had good reputations and they felt like my reputation was at a place they were willing to jump in with as well. And so it took off and it's been really great.

So earlier I had the privilege of talking to one of those partners, which was Dr. Zegzula, and I asked him about how you found the beautiful space that you're in the building, and I'm curious if you remember that the same way. Were you part of the process of looking for the space that in?

Yeah, yeah. We wanted to have a fairly central location and we needed parking. Parking in town obviously is a big deal. I don't know if he remembers that as being as big a deal as I did, but

No, but that was a prescient feeling to put parking at the top of the list.

Yeah, well, when we moved here, we actually lived in a condo or an apartment. We rented an apartment down here in town just across the parking lot actually from where we live right now. And I mean, our friends were street parking to come visit there. So I mean, I knew that for me that was something that was high on the list. But we wandered around and looked at all kinds of buildings and we wanted to be in the Pearl District, and this building was really cool. It's an old building. It has the old brick, it has a lot of character. It had the parking, it had the square footage, although he was coming from a very small office at the time, Dr. Zegzula, and he couldn't imagine how we were going to ever need all this space. And within about six months, he couldn't believe that we could actually have used an extra room. It just was that busy, that fast. And so again, I love this building. I love this location. I can't see it. I'm looking out the window at a bridge that's going just adjacent to the building that we're in, and it's just a cool feel.

Well, it's kind of a famous bridge and if you live in Portland, you know exactly what the building looks like and where it is.

It's fun.

And now you're,

The river is right there too.

I think you've had a hand in the interior too. Hasn't some of that been fun for you to work on?

It is, yeah. The interior we set up, when we originally started Portland Plastic Surgery Group, we were on one side of the hall and had that space. And so really had a lot of fun coming up with the idea and the feel and the mood and whatever of well, of the practice of the space. Again, trying to keep some of the old brick and the character sticks of that part still there, but add some modern and some new and some clean looks as well. And then we recently expanded across the hall and added a surgery center, and so we've been working to kind of meld and we have a medi spa that we're rebranding and trying to have it grow on its own and bring it out of the practice itself. And so all of these things, again, the mood, the people who's here, how do we feel, how do we want it to feel? And I just think that's really fun to think about someone's experience coming into our office and then how do we make that nice and how do we create an environment where people want to be here? So yeah, we've been working on that. That's been fun.

I think it really comes through.

Good. I appreciate that.

It's fun to hear what's behind it, especially since I know I've seen it, but then I got to go behind the walls a little bit and that was really a treat.

Yeah.

Is there a specific type of patient that finds you now that's sort of like the way that I ask who's your ideal patient, but really I think what I see more often is that certain types of patients are drawn to certain kinds of surgeons, and that's what I want to try to figure out. Who is your patient, Dr. O'Brien.

I often tell my patients that when they ask, do you specialize anything? I still align from my chairman when I was a trainer and he said, I specialize in nice people. And I think that, I mean a lot of patients and probably wisely, so they investigate, they look, they're trying to figure out a match of personality and things like that. As a surgeon, I'm hoping to do the same, to find somebody who wants to be there, who wants to work with me too. I talk a lot and I go through things in a lot of detail and for a lot of patients that is comforting. And I think that the patients that sort of drop in and stay with me are those that are happy to go in. They talk about it, this is their goals. They feel comfortable opening up with what they're seeking. It's hard for me if somebody just says, do what you think, I think that I need to know what they are seeing for themselves. And so I tend to feel like my patients come in, they are ready to get comfortable and just talk about what it is they're hoping for. And again, nice people.

Do you find that your patients start to feel like friends pretty quickly?

I think they do. I really want to know. I mean, I mentioned earlier that I'm a social person, so I really enjoy hearing people's stories. But I love, most days I pop open whom I seeing today in clinic and these post-ops, I'm like, oh my gosh, I wonder how their trip was or different things like that that they've been thinking about or whatever. Or they wanted to look good for something and did the wedding go well or whatever. And so you do, you get to know, know people in a vulnerable place if they're coming in and just sort of saying, Hey, what do you think? I'm not comfortable with it. It's hard to come in and say, I don't feel comfortable about this myself. Or like I said, certainly if somebody's going through something really medically challenging like breast cancer or what have you, it's really hard for them to come in and go through and give over that level of control to somebody else. And I really respect them for trusting. I really appreciate that.

Is there anything you do to help them feel more comfortable or safer when they haven't gotten to know you very well yet?

I think it just comes back to sitting down, talking, taking your time, making sure nobody feels rushed. My patients do also know that I do fall behind in clinic sometimes, but it is because I'm usually trying to really get somebody through something or figure something out or tease out, explain whatever it is that they need to make sure that everybody's on the same page and you've got their mind around what we're doing. I just find that even if something's tricky, if we can still talk it through or whatever, we end up in a good place in the end. I think that that relationship is so important, and I usually feel like we establish it pretty quickly early on.

What is a consultation like with you? At least for aesthetic surgery?

For aesthetic surgery, people come in, try to feel out what's going on, what is somebody looking for, why is it that they're looking to make this change? Making sure that they're coming from a healthy place for themselves, that they're not looking for something to change their lives, that it has no ability to change something of their lives just from a place in themselves. And then basically, we run through the procedure. I tend to use a lot of images. I utilize the system called TouchMD that shows diagrams and before and after pictures and can bring up the patient's pictures themselves and we can kind of say, this is your goal. This is where we're starting. This is what hopefully we can expect for you. And try to get through the things that not only that need to be said about taking on a procedure or what have you. Sometimes saying, no, I don't think it's the right procedure, right decision. It's not going to get you the result you're looking for. Maybe there's another alternative. Maybe come back in five years just too young and beautiful, whatever. And so it's just a matter of walking through it all and making sure that if they're going to take on something like surgery, that they're going to in the end be really happy not only with the journey, but get them where they want to be.

How do you use TouchMD in your consults? Do you use the drawing tools a lot?

I do. Whether it's the diagrams I will draw on before and after patients to show where an incision may be or where I removed the skin for this tummy tuck through this ellipse or what have you. And I show where when things are rearranged, this used to be here and now it's over here, and that's how much things are changing so that they get an idea. It's not going in to get your hair trimmed. It's a big deal and make sure everybody has a good perspective on it, but I'm a very visual learner. And then when I can show them through the diagrams, I feel like I'm getting my point across well. And I do think that it helps with that conversation a lot.

I think you do these all the time and you do it every day, but for many people, it's the only consultation they may ever have. And so putting that delicate conversation on an iPad instead of pointing at somebody's body directly, I think is really a nice way to make them feel safer.

Oh, I think so. I mean, I often will obviously be looking in the mirror with a patient exposing them whatever body part it is, but it's awkward to be looking at yourself and trying to talk objectively about something that you obviously have emotion and feelings behind and all of that. And so like you said, separating it, having it be on either someone else's photos or diagrams or whatever is really takes some of that emotion out and just sort of allows them to actually think here and ask question, remember the questions that they had and ask the questions that they had.

Yep. It's very useful. How do you think your staff would describe you?

I'm pretty calm. My emotions are pretty balanced, pretty easy to approach. I hope that's what they think in general, it's just really pleasant. I love my staff. They're amazing. They're fun people. They're interesting people. They work really hard. I really respect that about them. I hope they see those things in me, things that I see in them, and maybe that's why we work together well. And I like to laugh. I don't know. I think I joke around a lot.

I'm getting the sense that you're maybe a little bit of an extrovert.

<laugh> Yeah, maybe. Just a little bit.

Picturing you,

From the age of zero.

Look at the schedule for the day and get excited about all these people that you get to talk to, which is the opposite of when I look at my schedule and it's full of people, I'm like, no. <laugh>

Why? More people? No. Yeah, no, I'm definitely energized by interactions.

Okay. I have some important Portland questions.

Okay.

Did you watch Portlandia?

No. No. Two episodes. Two episodes.

Which ones? Do you remember?

Uh. The first one and the second one?

What was the chicken's name?

I don't know. I don't remember. It's been a long time. I do know a friend of mine, they did use a house just down the street from my friend. I know where that house is.

I watched the whole thing and I still, anytime we're in a restaurant and someone orders chicken, I ask what the chicken's name was.

What was its name? Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The range. Where did it grow up?

How far away? It was 28 miles.

28 miles. Yeah. That couldn't be more true is the number of words on any menu under any menu item. It's like all the things, all the adjectives. And then the other thing is where young people go to retire, and that statement, I feel like it was in the intro or the first episode or something, but that was what my husband and I when we moved here, just trying to get our practices going. And as I mentioned, getting ready, starting our family, and we're looking around and there are people who are like 24 who are headed off on a Wednesday to ski. I mean, it is like every day they have their snowboards. We're like, we're riding down the elevator from our apartment, just wondering, when do these people work? We're working like crazy, and they are having lots of fun. So.

I used to work with someone in Seattle who he'd watch the snow report and then he'd cough all day long, so that next day when he'd call in sick, they'd be like, yeah, you didn't sound good yesterday.

You sounded terrible. Yeah. When it's raining in Portland during the winter, oftentimes people are getting really excited. It means it's snowing in the mountains and they're dying to get up there.

That's right. Okay. Do you wear socks with sandals?

Nope, but my daughter does.

Oh, she's a native.

She's a native, yeah. She doesn't want to let the dogs out.

Seahawks or Cowboys?

Cowboys.

Good answer.

No question. It's a fun rivalry though. We have lots of Seahawks fans around here. Yeah.

I don't know if Portland's ever going to get an N F L team. I

I don't know. They're working on baseball right now.

Baseball, I guess that sort of makes sense.

I mean, it's a little bit smaller, but we have a few minor league teams in the area, and so there is some following for baseball. I mean, I love all sports, so baseball is fun.

Well you have the Timbers and the Blazers.

We have the Timbers and the Blazers. Yep. Do both of those. The Thorns, Portland Thorns are the women's soccer team. They're trying to get a W N B A team as well. That's the other, because the venue's already built, so that would be another nice addition.

Okay, last one. If someone's listening today and they want to come see you, what's the best way to reach out? Find out how to do that?

Call some of our lovely staff members at 5 0 3 2 9 2 9 2 0 0, or you can check us out on portland plastic surgery.com

And I'll put those in the show notes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. O'Brien.

Oh, it was so fun.

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