38 July/August 2017 Plastic Surgery News

LASTSTITCH

LOVE OF TH E GAM E SETS U P SUCC ESS I N TH E SPEC IALTY

Dudley Giles, MD, felt quite alone on the pitcher’s mound during a game with hisWestminster College baseball Titans. He had surrendered three runs before histeam even came to bat – and before his opponent had made its first out. However,

the mettle he conjured during that half-inning came to serve him well throughout the remain-der of his college pitching career – and into his career as a plastic surgeon – as he finishedthat game with no more damage.

“I’m not a demonstrative guy, but Iremember vividly that as I walked to thebench, I said: ‘That’s it; no more runs.’ Ijust made up my mind right there that Iwasn’t going to give up any more runsthat day – and I didn’t.” His Titans wenton to win the contest by a 4-3 score, withthe future Dr. Giles earning a complete-game victory. No more runs.

Dr. Giles says that lesson and otherslearned on the diamond have regularlyresurfaced in many, unexpected ways. ”Ipreach to my son, a golfer, that you’renever done until the last out of the gameor you’re out of the last hole,” he says.“It’s not over until it’s over – you keepplugging along, whatever the pursuit.”

Most of Dr. Giles’ baseball exploits weremuch more positive than the start againstthe rival Geneva Golden Tornadoes in far-western Pennsylvania. In fact, his achievementsin athletics and scholastics are the stuff of legend at Westminster: In 1983, Dr. Giles was therecipient of the Gene Waldron Award given to the nation’s top junior NAIA student athlete.In 2014, he was elected to the Titans’ Sports Hall of Fame – and he was a four-year lettermanfor Westminster, and an All-District First Team honoree in baseball in 1982 and 1983.

Dr. Giles’ love of baseball is evident in the path he chose to the specialty. “I knew I wantedto be a doctor, but I also wanted to play baseball,” he says. “I researched colleges and founda six-year, accelerated program that combined college and medical school – but they said,‘There’s no way you’re going to be able to play baseball.’ Instead, I went four years at West-minster College, where I could play,” which he followed with general and plastic surgerytraining at Temple University, Philadelphia.

While baseball served as the grand bridge between Dr. Giles’ undergraduate work andmedical school, it also was the muse that set the stage for one of the most peculiar medicalschool interviews any plastic surgeon has undergone. After traveling to Temple for a make-or-break meeting, Dr. Giles recalls “walking out of that thinking that it was the easiest interviewever – 29 of the 30 minutes were about baseball. Either I was going to get in, or they hadno interest in me; there weren’t many applicants who were four-year lettermen with nationalscholar-athlete awards. So baseball helped me get into medical school.”

Success on the mound and in the O.R. necessarily require physical skills and hand-eye coor-dination, he says, but they also demand the mindset to persevere when problems and set-backs emerge. In both pursuits, “you learn as you go,” Dr. Giles says. “If you keep throwingthe same pitch to the same batter and he clobbers it over the fence, you know what works,what doesn’t and which mistakes not to repeat.

“It’s the same in surgery,” he adds. “I don’t operate the same way I did 20 years ago. Youlive, you learn, you make mistakes and you incorporate the ‘strikeouts’ as well as the ‘homeruns’ into what works for you and your practice. You evolve and become a better plastic sur-geon. I think I’ve done that.” PSN

15 YEARS AGO IN PSN...A proposal to reduce the number of ASPS Board ofDirectors positions to 21 from 25 while simultaneouslyincreasing representation were addressed by ASPS lead-ership in the article “Plan endorsed to streamline ASPSboard, broaden representation,” printed in the August2002 issue of PSN:

“(We need to) reengineer the board to have a composition that’s more reflectiveof the specialty and less endowed with past leadership, as well as create a com-mission/committee structure (to) be more issue-oriented than title-orientedwith more investment by younger plastic surgeon leaders.”

Edward Luce, MD2002 ASPS president PSN

SURGEON SPOTLIGHTIN THIS ISSUE, we present to you Brent Egeland, MD,

Austin, Texas, a member of the ASPS Clinical Registries

Steering; Coding and Payment Policy; and Young Plastic

Surgeons committees. Dr. Egeland completed his integrated

plastic surgery residency at the University of Michigan, Ann

Arbor, and a hand/microvascular fellowship at Mayo Clinic,

Rochester, Minn. Taking time away from his pursuit of hob-

bies that include skiing, fly-fishing, mountain biking, cook-

ing and gardening, Dr. Egeland found time to answer the

following questions for PSN:

If I had to start my career over I would… Spend more

time learning the business of medicine. The conflicts of

money and patient care cannot be ignored, as they affect

every facet of what we do.

The single-greatest contribution to Plastic Surgery is…Sir Harold Gillies’ so-called “Ten Commandments of

Plastic Surgery.” They are rules by which virtually every

other contribution can be organized or attributed. Some

also provide rules to use in daily life.

The single-greatest influence on my decision to becomea Plastic Surgeon was… While considering other

specialties in medical school, William Kuzon, MD, PhD,

displayed a slide: a venn diagram that showed (and

emphatically stated) that plastic surgery was the center

of the surgical universe. Sold!

The last book I’ve read was… Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins. It describes the way in

which NGOs operate to manipulate economies of the world to benefit the United States. It’s a must-read to

understand our current geopolitics – and where we fit in the world.

The best vacation I ever took was… A trip to the SpanishBalaeric Islands (Mallorca, Ibiza) with my fiancée, before I

had any true obligations in life.

The first website I check each morning is… Reddit. It com-

bines world news, sports and ridiculous “narwhal humor”

from the interwebs.

The best thing a grateful patient ever game me…Came from

a heavily tattooed, ex-gang member who presented with an

open-perilunate wrist fracture. He was at his Texas Hill Coun-

try ranch when he and his favorite horse were hit by a car – only he survived. He later asked me for my signature

on a white sheet of paper. Two weeks later, he returned to clinic with a huge tattoo of that signature on his

entire forearm. He wanted to always remember how much I did for him surgically and emotionally.

The best dish I cook is…Neapolitan pizza. I spent years sourcing and experimenting with everything from

the oven, to the tomatoes, to the yeast. It’s completely authentic – what Italians label as DOP, or “protected

designation of origin.”

I couldn’t operate without my…Music. I focus

more with music in the background, so I always

need Spotify, Radio Paradise or some Grateful

Dead show playing in the O.R.

The best thing about being a Plastic Surgeon is…Knowing how to do everyone else’s job, while no

one knows how to do ours.

The funniest tattoo I’ve ever seen is…Not fit for

print! (Or, see “Grateful Patient,” above.)

The best part of next weekend will be…Unplug-

ging and wake-surfing on Lake Austin with my

family: My wife, Angela; my son, Blake, age 10;

and my daughter, Maia, age 8.

I seriously collect … Toyota FJ40 Land Cruisertrucks. I have three: One 1976 is all original with

75,000 miles; one is being restored down to the nuts and bolts; and one is a rust-bucket for parts. The trucks

and parts from all over the world fill every nook and cranny of my garage. PSN

Brent Egeland, MD

Editor’s note: The bulk of PSN’s pages are devotedto specific elements of our mission statement – tokeep members informed of the social, political andeconomic trends and educational opportunities thataffect the specialty of plastic surgery.

PSN is pleased to take liberties with the “social”aspect of its mission statement by presenting a good-natured look at the lives of notable members who webelieve are making significant contributions to thespecialty.

THE

Dr. Giles as a pitcher for WestminsterCollege, Pennsylvania, in 1982, and today.

Dr. Egeland and his son, Blake, and daughter, Maia, atGooseberry Falls, Minn., in July 2016.

Dr. Egeland and his wife, Angela.