A Professional Hockey Player from Canada Becomes a Surgeon and Moves to Maine: Meet Jarrod Daniel

And today I have with me a fellow health care, um, individual Dr. Jared Daniel. He's a different sort of healthcare provider than I am as a plastic surgeon operating out of Portland, Maine. Great to have you here today. Thanks for having me, Lisa, some people might wonder why do we have a plastic surgeon in to talk about art, but I think this is a, you're an interesting individual because you are not what you appear at first. You have a very interesting and complex backstory. Is that fair? I would say that's fair to say. Yeah. Okay. Uh, you're not from Maine originally, correct. Although your wife's family part of your wife's family is from Maine. That's right? Yeah. Her father. So my father-in-law is from Bangor, Maine. I grew up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. And you met at Miguel? Yes. We met at McGill 1995. Um, Freddy, her Frederick was on the track and field team and I was on the hockey team, Which led to, I would say one of the first parts of your important life existence as a hockey player, correct? Yes. Yeah. I would say that. And, you know, it was interesting as you know, I played a lot of hockey up until that point and then another four years at McGill. Um, and it was just wonderful being part of a school team in that school spirit and living in Montreal was also fantastic. And obviously a hockey town. How did you first get interested in hockey? What was the draw? I Grew up in Canada, that's it? Yeah. Everybody played growing up and, you know, I went from playing defense to forward. And then finally I settled in, it's a goaltender pucks flying at your face, and that is a lot of pucks at high speeds and they're frozen And it seems like you had to somehow decide, well, okay, now I want, instead of being possibly damaged by things coming at me at high speed, now I want to go help fix people. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, that really happened. Um, at the beginning at McGill, I studied anatomy and physiology, um, and I knew I wanted to go into medicine. So it was kind of a pre-med course. Um, I knew that my career was probably going to be done at the end of that. Um, and then it was just a matter of what I wanted to do, why medicine, I just had, my mom was an RN, a nurse. And I remember as a young kid going through all of her textbooks and really getting interested in anatomy and just helping people seemed like something I wanted to do. And I wanted to do something tactile with my hands, um, just with, you know, my physical background. And that's why surgery really, you know, became what I wanted to do. Did you have an interest in actually creating art when you were growing up a little bit? My parents would tell me that I'd sit in my room and draw a lot. Um, and I'd like to make things, make things with Lego and, you know, build. Um, but as far as like an artist, like really artistic, not, not particularly, I have two siblings who are orthopedic surgeons and both of them actually have very artistic backgrounds. In fact, either one of them, I could have seen them going into the art area rather than surgery. I suspect that's not unusual that there is something about the visual sense that crosses over. Absolutely. There's no question, you know, especially with my patients now you almost see it as a canvas. Um, so it's, it's really, it's an interesting profession, um, because really you're restoring somebody's natural beauty and, um, just trying to help them achieve their goals, you know, from that standpoint and getting on the same page with the patient, beating their, understanding, their desires, where they want to be, and then producing that for them is, is a wonderful way to, you know, make a living. Jared, how did you end up going to medical school in Australia? Great Question. So in 1999, my wife and I decided to go over to Nepal and do some pro bono work. It was something we always wanted to do. We did a lot of mountaineering and outdoor activity as well, had the opportunity to go to Everest base camp, Annapurna base camp while we're there. We worked with a lot of Australian physicians and when we're finished with our travels, they kind of said, well, come back and visit us in Australia. So my wife and I said, you know what, we're young, let's go ahead and do that. Went down to Australia, to south Australia, to Adelaide, met up with the same physicians there. And while we're there, they said, you know what, you're Canadian, you should apply to medical school here. And I'd never thought of that idea. Canada is part of the Commonwealth. It just kinda made sense. So while we're there, I played to medical school, my wife applied to do her MBA and we both got in, in the same city. So we decided to stay there for four years. Is there a difference between the way medical education is approached in the Commonwealth versus in the United States? But So they're actually the ones that started the problem based learning rather than the systematic learning. And that's being adopted now in the United States. So it's obviously working And you at some point decided, okay, I'm going to do a residency in surgery and other one in plastic surgery, but was there some turning point for you? Was there some, was there a class that you took that or an orient, um, a rotation that you did that made you feel like, okay, plastic surgery, this is what I want to do. Yeah. And my second year at the Mayo clinic, during my general surgery residency, I did a plastics rotation and absolutely fell in love with it. Um, I love the fact that we worked on every single part of the body, you know, from the toes to the top of the head and that you were creating something and you were fixing problems, you were filling holes. You were, that's why it's called plastic surgery. Um, and so it was fascinating to me. So while I was at the Mayo, I did as many rotations as I could in plastics. And then in your fourth year, you have to decide whether you're going to go on and do a fellowship. And I had a lot of support there, uh, from, from staff to apply to plastic surgery. And, um, yeah, I wanted to go to Emory university, which is kind of the Mecca of plastic surgery and ended up getting a spot there and was thrilled. And so spent three years in Atlanta. What's your favorite part of the body to work on? I actually Operate on all parts of the body. Um, right now I'm probably doing the majority of breast surgery. I did a lot of breast reconstructive surgery when I was accepting insurance now, mainly doing cosmetics. So I really enjoy breast surgery. Um, having said that I do a lot of body contouring recently. I've been doing a lot of massive weight loss, body contouring. Um, and then my practice in facial surgery has really picked up as well. So I do a lot of eye surgery, rhinoplasties facelifts as well. So I pretty much do it all. So that's something to do with COVID and people seeing themselves on zoom. Great question. It's called what the zoom, boom. I don't know if you've heard that term, but yes. Yeah. We have seen an uptick. I don't know how much of it has to do with that, or are people just have more time at home, more time to recover from surgery? Um, additionally, that stimulus check has given patients some money to put down on surgery and then put the rest on something like care credit. So all of us have really seen a boom in business, Plastic surgery contribute to people's. Um, self-esteem what do you see from the beginning to the end of the process? Quite remarkable. Um, you know, I could have a 72 year old female who is not happy, let's say with their nose. And so ever since middle school, she's not been in any school photos. She doesn't show up to photo day. Um, family photos, she kind of stands in the back, her self esteem. She doesn't go to the school dances, it doesn't do anything. And then an hour and a half surgery and they come out of it, just changing one small thing like that, and it changes their entire lives. Um, you know, there are a lot of people out there that would say, well, just be happy, be happy in your own body. And you know, I believe in that I've got three girls as well, but if there is something there, something that can be changed. I mean, we do not give anybody a hard time about getting braces Dewey and that fixes crooked teeth. So I'm fixing a crooked nose. Your story about potentially the 17 year old girl reminds me of when I, I had a patient come to see me, this was probably about 10 years ago now. And she was in her twenties and I couldn't figure out why she had a hard time looking in the eye. She had a hard time answering my questions and she kept her hand over her mouth. And then, uh, when she finally moved her hand, I realized she had no teeth and it's, it's so impacted her ability to communicate with me. Nevermind. Just eat healthy foods that I w it just struck me that there's some things that we take for granted. Right? Absolutely. We do take it for granted. Um, yeah, it's, it is interesting. Um, I, you know, and with our, I mean, going to like maybe an older patient, someone that comes in for a facelift, it's not like we're trying to change the way they look. They just want to be rejuvenated and feel young, and it's just part of their whole persona and it gives them that extra boost. So it is, it is really interesting to think of that dynamic. And you mentioned the, um, removal of extra skin for people have had dramatic weight losses. I know people that I've had as patients have worked so hard to, um, decrease their body mass index. You know, they've gone through the bariatric surgery and they're really in a great place, but then they come in and they, they show me their bellies or they show me the skin under their arms. And it, it really feels a little demoralizing to them that they put all this effort into trying to get healthier again and look better. And they can't quite get to that final place Is a big one. And that's one of our most rewarding surgeries. I really enjoy. I'm doing massive weight loss surgery. It's a long day. Uh, those surgeries can take six, eight hours, but the transformation for me, I just feel, you know, I guess so much gratitude that I get to complete their journey. As you said, they do all the hard work, the weight loss, going through the surgery, keeping the weight off, doing the exercise, putting in all that effort. And then I get to give them the final result, which is very rewarding. You Have to have a different type of relationship with your patients than say I do as a family practice doctor, obviously my patients have to trust me and I have to go into, um, my conversations in a really collaborative way, but they're, they're handing you their, their face, their, their bodies. And they're saying, okay, I want you to bring me closer to how I see myself. How do you navigate that? That's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure. Um, but I see it as a collaboration between myself and the patient and every single patient is different. And you've got to walk into every single consult thinking that way. And I need to get on the same page as the patient in a hurry. There's going to be a type, a patient that wants to know everything about surgery. And then there's going to be a patient that will come in and say, do whatever you want, doc type thing. And so getting on that same page, just, you know, getting their goals, I guess, pinpointed, but also realistic realistic expectations is a big one. And so if we can come together and, you know, get a realistic expectation of what they're looking for, and I feel like I can achieve that, then we can proceed. And then afterwards, you know, the aftercare as well, and just holding their hand through the entire process, it is it's, it's a lot of work and it's a lot of pressure delivering those goals for them. It's also important for you to have a nice space for your patients to go to you, can't have a standard industrial medical setting. You need people to feel comfortable. You need them to feel, um, a little pampered, I guess, going into this. Uh, I, I tell me about that. That's not something that every medical practice has to take into consideration. Absolutely. Right. And you know, we've built a beautiful space, um, that I think is welcoming to patients. You're right. I don't want it to feel sterile. I don't want it to feel like a hospital setting. I want them to feel a comfort, almost like they're in a spa type atmosphere, which I think that we've created pretty well. Additionally, all my staff are trained a little bit differently. This is more of a concierge type service. Do you think there are lessons that we in medicine could learn from the type of practice that you have as far as, um, patient experience and, uh, interactions? Yeah, I think patient experience definitely, you know, just, I mean, nobody wants to go to the doctor, right. That sterile, that smell. Um, the other thing I, that you touched on, which I think is very important is the way each one of my nurses, my staff, my MAs treat each patient. They know each patient, they follow each patient from day one, you know, until they're finished with our care. So that continuity is very important. I think it makes them feel at home. So I think that sometimes in the large hospital settings, that's difficult to achieve. Speaking of spaces, I know that you and Freddy have not too long ago, completed a home, not very far away from where we're located, CADed now on cousins island. It took you awhile to get that built, but it's beautiful. It's a really lovely space. You have four children, you're all occupying that space well, and art is an important part of it. Yeah. Art is a big part of it. You know, um, when you asked me for the interview, I kind of went back and tried to figure out how that developed. And so, you know, growing up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with my parents, my parents traveled a lot and wherever they went, they brought back a piece of art, whether it be China, Indonesia, Mexico, and they bring it into our home. And it was just part of the way I grew up. And then they got really into Quebec art, into Quebec artists and landscapes in the snow scapes. And so, you know, growing in that atmosphere, going to galleries to look at paintings, really got me interested. And then my hockey kind of took over. And I kind of lost that fast forward to going to McGill and Montreal and meeting Freddy, who is from France and who would go to the loop once a month, you know, growing up. And so she was very, very interested in art. So she forced me to go to museums in Montreal. And, um, I really started getting back into it. Her family was big into art. Um, her father who was from Maine, they own a lot of, um, artists from, from Maine. And so we really started to get into it at that point in time, um, and started collecting on our own. So then when we started traveling, whether it be Nepal, Africa, Australia, Cambodia, Vietnam, we made sure that we brought something back. Um, and so yeah, our house is filled with all these beautiful items. Um, and then yeah, uh, decorating the house, um, finding beautiful artwork was very important to us. I just think that it brings so much culture and, and just atmosphere to your home, Who are some of your favorite main artists? Well, obviously the one behind us that's happens to be our Cockins yes. Which happens via Eric Hopkins. And it, he just struck me. Um, when I, um, was speaking with your husband and he brought some samples of different artists for us to look at, and I just took one look and I was like, that's it? Um, the reason is, is because my first few times actually coming to the state of Maine, I flew in a small plane to get here. And I remember looking out and seeing this and just falling in love with Maine right away. And so to capture that, you know, just wonderfully the way he has just really, you know, struck me, um, other artists that we own. I mean, we own a bunch, but call and page, um, is just really a, I don't know, he just captures the coastline, the ledge. Um, I don't know. We really, really enjoy his work. Um, I don't know if you're familiar with Anna B. McCoy, but she's a descendant of the Y's and she does still painting. So we have a few of, you know, her work. Yeah. We, we dabble in a little bit of everything. You also, Your house is located in a very interesting place, you know, you're kind of the backside of the island. Um, it's, uh, title waters that come through says a lot of changeability compared to other parts of the island that, you know, there's a tide, but it doesn't impact quite as much. Was that important to you? You know, it, We didn't think about it cause you know, I grew up in the Rocky mountains and so we didn't really think that much about it. It was more the piece of land and we were able to get six acres right there on the water. And now that it is title, we love it because the kids go out on the flats, they're digging for clams, um, all the tidal pools. And then during high tide, we can fly fish for striped bass. You know, we can paddleboard, we can kayak, but the change you're right. It is, it's an ever-changing, uh, scenery, which is wonderful. Now you're you actually own your business. You're a, you're a small business owner, which is different than most physicians who probably about 80% of us are employed by large healthcare systems. That's a lot of pressure on you. Um, how do you find time to go fly fishing? I, I w I forced myself to find time, you know, it's difficult, you're right. Owning a business, operating, you know, worrying about your patients being on call for kids and their activities. It gets to be a lot, but you know, you just have to make it a priority. And you know, this summer, I'm really trying to find more of a life work balance and taking a lot more time off. I also owned a small practice while I was raising my kids probably around your kids' ages. And I thought, you know, there are actually some benefits to that because you make your own schedule. If you want to go to a soccer game, you know, that maybe you're not going to be generating the revenue from a patient visit, but it's a choice that you're making. Yeah, No, you're, you're right in, in that aspect. If I want to schedule vacation, I can schedule vacation. And the other side of the business, the spa side will keep running. So it continues to bring in revenue while we do that. And so I'm trying to take advantage of that as much as possible. Tell me about Freddy and the kids you have, you have, well, you have a lot going on there. I do. Yeah. So Friday night been married 21 years. Um, and we have four children. Hugo is 13. Delfina's 10 Cappy scene is eight and Emiline is seven. So yeah, four kids, they're all very athletic and, uh, go to north Yarmouth academy and all do very well in school. We're proud of them all. Um, but yeah, chasing them around at sporting events and that sort of thing is flying around the country, flying around the world for their sporting events. How Do you find it to be simultaneously, deeply rooted in Maine and also still very international? That's not something that everybody experiences. So for you, it's a, it's kind of an ongoing back and forth between being here and being elsewhere. Yeah. There's an ongoing back and forth. My parents still living in Canada. My brother lives out in Oregon and you know, Freddy and I've lived around the world around, you know, many different cities in Canada, many different cities in the United States. But for some reason, coming back to Maine always feels like home. I don't know why. Um, but juggling that, getting out of the Portland airport is sometimes a little difficult, but yeah, we manage What did Freddy end up doing with her MBA? Great question. So when I was at the Mayo, she was actually mails international marketing consultant, which was a fascinating job. In fact, she had the opportunity to meet the Dalai Lama when he came to the Mayo. Um, so she did that for two years and then we became pregnant with our first in 2007 Hugo while I was at the Mayo. And since then she's been running our home business, which is a lot of work. Yeah. For kids. Yeah. That's a lot going on. Yeah. I don't know if you can answer this question for her, but to move from Paris, France to Bangor, that's a big shift. It's a big shift. How did that work for her? And It was tough. A 13 year old girl moving from Paris to Maine, not speaking English. Well, she tells me she learned watching like three's company. Um, but it was difficult. Kids called her French fry. You know, she was tall, skinny. It was, it was difficult for her, but by the time she got into high school, she had found track and field and excelled at that. She actually held the main state record for high jump for 15 years. Um, and so she really found something in sports and academics and then coming up to McGill Montreal and getting back into a French culture, I think was very important for her. But yeah, it was, it wasn't easy for a few years. That's for sure. It's interesting because Maine is so steeped in French Canadian culture. So you'd think that a French speaking 13 year old maybe wouldn't have such a hard time, but it sounds like her French was Parisian French versus kind of the dialectical French Canadian French. And she said that when her grandparents came to visit and went to Montreal, they said that that was the French, they heard on the farm from their grandparents. And so, yeah, it's, it's completely different. French. In fact, when we'd be sitting in lectures at McGill, I'd be there with the hockey guys and half the hockey team were French. She'd say, I can't even understand what they're saying. So yeah, it's different. Yeah. I know traveling to Northern Maine and I spoke high school, French, which is more Parisian French and a little bit of Miltown buffered French from my dad. Um, I would go to Northern Maine and listen to, you know, the valley French and there's even a couple of different dialects going on there. And I, I had a hard time kind of understanding what people were saying. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There are a lot of dialects, you know, just outside of Montreal, as soon as you get to the city center, Montreal, you're speaking French. And then the next township, you're speaking a little different French, next one, a little different French. It's, it's unique. So if you travel all over the world, then it's not just French. That can be a useful language in its various forms to know, but just understanding people because you probably, there's probably no way you could know all the different languages needed. You just have to kind of things out as you go along. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And you know, we're really trying to instill that in our kids and getting them to travel as much as possible now that our youngest is seven. Uh we're we're going to take an adventure next year and we think we're going to headed to South Africa. So we've got a lot of things planned, but you're right. You know, just relating to people. I mean, we've been to Czech to Slovakia, to Greece, to so all of Southeast Asia, but yeah, you're right. Just communicating with people is, uh, is this is a skill that is important to Have COVID impact you and your family. We were fortunate in a few ways. Number one, we've just built that home. And so they had six acres to play on. So they had a playground in their backyard. We had the paddle boards, we had kayaks, we built a zip line. We had mountain biking trails. So we had a lot of outdoor activities. The social interaction was the more difficult part, but at least they had the, for the siblings. Um, so from, I think we're fortunate from our standpoint being in the position we were from a work standpoint, I only had to shut down for six weeks, so it wasn't too bad. Um, we're also fortunate that they're at north Yarmouth academy. So they did a lot of the courses online that were very interactive and the teachers were actually stopped by the house at the end of the driveway to, you know, kind of interact and give them their assignments. Um, and then starting last year, they'd been in school full-time, uh, with masks. So it actually wasn't too bad for us. I have a brother that moved back to Yarmouth from, um, California, and he has three little boys. One of them went into the public schools and one of them went to Nya and then along the street, little go to school, but he had kind of the same experience with, because it was a private school, they were able to accommodate the educational experience in person in a much different way than I think that public school teachers had to navigate. Yeah. Yeah. I think that it was, it was very important, uh, for our kids to have that face-to-face interaction with their peers and with their teachers, because you just can't learn the same way if you're not in that classroom or face-to-face with your teacher. Um, we have a lot of friends who were at public schools who came to Nya and in fact, Nya had to increase the number of classes they had, but they still kept the classes around 10, 10 kids per class. And I think that's how we were able to get through the pandemic. If anyone tested positive, nobody did in the lower school or the middle school, a couple of high schoolers, did they just shut down the high school and do it all remotely? Um, but the other thing that's come from it is I don't think we're going to have snow days, no snow days. Um, and so I, I actually think that coming out of the pandemic, we've learned a lot of skills that are going to be helpful, uh, down the road in education. When I think about what people who, um, many people who send their kids to public schools versus kids who are able to send their kids to private schools there, there's, you know, there's an ongoing kind of discrepancy a conflict. And, um, if there was a way to bring lessons that, you know, are not, are financially feasible, I guess, from the public, I mean, from the private into the public, what, what would you say those are? Well, first Of all, my Freddie and I were both public school, um, you know, educated. Um, the main reason why we're at MOA is for Hugo's hockey, uh, because he can go from the classroom, they have a study hall where he has to study and then he steps on the ice. And so that just worked beautifully for us. And then we're like, okay, if he's going, we better send the rest of them. Um, as far as lessons between, um, the private in the public, I think the big thing are the class sizes. And I don't know if you can get around that in the public system due to funding, um, that one-on-one interaction with the teacher is so important. Um, if one of our children has the slightest problem, you know, during the week with something in math, we'll get an email that Friday that gives me the opportunity over the weekend to sit down and say, Hey, you know, what's going on here? Like, let's work through this instead of at the end of the semester saying, well, why did you get a C in that subject? So I think just that close interaction is just so important. Yeah, You're right. And that's, that is tough to replicate in a public school setting. And I know that my, my mother was a public school teacher for many, many years, and she worked really hard to do this individualized approach with each of her, um, students, because I think as we know now, not every student learns the same. So some kids who did just fine during COVID, um, because they were able to do the non face-to-face, um, education they're, um, maybe gonna not do as well when they go back into the classroom. Yeah, you're right. I mean, our 13 year old, I mean, he's a social butterfly, he'd do fine, you know, learning at a public school, but you know, our 10 year old, you know, she's kind of a little bit more withdrawn. She may have been pushed to the back of the class, but in the private school they're pulled forward and pulled forward and, you know, things are drawn out of them that I just don't think would be, um, otherwise. And even as we're talking, I hope that there's a way that we can, um, the same way in medicine. I mean, I do telemedicine now virtual visits with my patients. And there are some patients who will never go back to doing those because they never liked them in the first place, but there are some patients really like them. And so having the ability to do the video based visit that's really important for those patients. And likewise for children, maybe there are some children that, you know, doing stuff online is going to be better for them. Long-term right. Better for them. But, you know, as you were speaking, I was, I was also thinking, in addition to meaning now that we're used to this getting tutor online, a tutor face-to-face, you know, getting more used to that interface is, is important. And I have patients coming from Canada, from Northern Maine, from Fairmont, from, you know, everywhere. So I'm doing virtual consults as well, you know, just to kind of get a feel like, is it worth coming all the way down here? So there are great things that have come out of the pandemic. Do you talk with your children about art? Do you talk with your children about the works that you have in your home or when you go to museums with them? Absolutely. Yeah. Hugo's first book was, um, Lichtenstein something about Lichtenstein and it was a picture book. So yes we do. And they, they love it. Um, Hugo made team north America for hockey before the pandemic. And so he played over in Paul's on Italy on the way there, we spent a week in Paris and we did music or say we did the loop and we had like a tour of each place and the kids just love it. So they're all into art and really enjoyed and appreciate it. And it's funny. I mean, I saw our daughter the other day walked past one of the paintings and just stare at it. So yeah, I it's, it's wonderful. We also, uh, my husband and I also have a lot of art in our homes and neither one of us grew up with art in the home. And both of us are public school educated. Both of us have parents who worked very hard at what they did, but just didn't have an art background. And so, because we now have art in our home, we'll have people over. And when they look around our house, that's what is noticed. It's I see this on the wall. I relate to this piece and I really become, comes away to, um, start conversations. Absolutely. It really does. Um, and again, as you were speaking, I was thinking about the private school public school again, and last year, um, our third, third grader did a unit on Monet and they had to replicate his paintings. And so, you know, it's just getting it into them when they're young, but you're right. It is a conversation starter and everybody sees every painting differently and sees something different in it. One of the things that I've enjoyed about doing radio Maine is that I personally am not, um, trained traditionally in art in any way. My training is mostly going to museums saying, oh, that's beautiful. And then learning more about the artist. Um