I was a Resident from 1990 – 1996, spending a year in the lab with Dr Dale Johnson at Primary Children’s Hospital. My first ten years after Residency I was in rural, broad based General surgical private practice including vascular, endoscopy and trauma in Rhinelander Wisconsin, then Duluth Minnesota. The last sixteen years I have practiced Acute Care, General and Trauma Surgery in Ft Collins, Colorado. I work at a Level 3 Trauma center and occasionally cover General Surgical call at a small hospital in Laramie, Wyoming. In Ft. Collins we have a Family Medicine Residency program, intermittent General Surgery Residents and students of every flavor. I am proud of the many nursing aides or scrub techs that I have mentored/adopted who are now in Medical, PA, NP or Nursing school. The past 10 years, I have had the privilege to work with The American Board of Surgery as an Associate Examiner and an Examination Consultant.
My pride and joy are my two daughters, Heidi and Elsa. My oldest daughter was born during my residency, the first for a female resident in the Utah General Surgery program. There was no maternity leave policy from the University of Utah or the American Board of Surgery at the time. I guess taking Heidi to academic meetings, Chief Resident’s conference and Grand Rounds spurned her interest in a Surgical career. She is a PGY-2 General Surgery Resident at Wake Forest University. I can still vividly remember the handful of our Surgical faculty who were supportive and kind to me right after she was born, asking first and foremost about Heidi prior to reviewing the patients crashing and burning in the ICU. Elsa is a software developer for an International non-profit Wildlife Protection Solutions. As every working parent knows, a supportive and patient spouse is integral. Erich did an amazing job keeping the home afloat and working as a Landscape Architect for the US Forest Service. As a family we enjoy biking, backpacking, Nordic and Alpine skiing. Even though we live in Colorado, Snowbird is our family favorite place to ski. I am fortunate to be able to ride my bike to the office or hospital here in Ft Collins almost year round.
I am proud to be a University of Utah alumni and as others have said, likely wouldn’t even get an interview these days! I have enjoyed the Utah alumni communications, reunions, surgical meetings and look forward to more in the future. I am also honored to be invited to Dr. Daniel Kollmorgen’s Surgical Kontinuum think tank meeting this Fall.