Catching up with Rob Wrona (class of 2012)

I left Salt Lake in 2014 and moved down to Durango, Colorado.  For those that haven’t been here, Durango is on the west slope of Colorado in the four corners region nowhere near Denver, about 2.5 hours southeast of Moab.  That’s where I have lived with my wife Megan ever since.  In our first year here, we had our daughter, Emma, who shockingly to me is now 10 years old.  She is named after the dog who saw us through medical school and residency (for me) and a PhD in Psychology (for Megan).  The canine Emma saw our first visit to Durango but died before we made the move. She was survived by another dog, Jasper, whom some will remember for his general ferocity.  He made the move with us but died a few years ago.  Now, we have another humane society mutt, Chloe. That’s the family.  Megan is tenured at Fort Lewis College and about to make full professor in the Spring.  Durango’s a small place, so when we go out to dinner and hear “hi, Dr. Wrona”, it’s usually one of her students greeting her.  Emma the daughter keeps us busy with her piano lessons, swim practices, frequent sleepovers with friends, and just general boundless energy.  I am an employed general surgeon at the roughly 80 bed hospital here.  Durango is pretty far from any metropolitan area - about a 4 hour drive to Albuquerque (which is frequently overwhelmed with New Mexico patients anyway) and around 7+ hours to Colorado Springs, Denver, Salt Lake, and Phoenix - so I practice a relatively wide breadth of general surgery I think.  As such, I remain a jack of all trades and master of none. Fortunately, my coresidents and attendings from residency who are experts in their fields have always graciously answered my calls when I’ve needed to phone a friend (thank you all to those I’ve bugged with questions over the years).  Every few years when I get frustrated with the demands of greater productivity with fewer resources by our administration, I toy with the idea of doing a fellowship and really specializing, but I’ve never actually pulled the trigger, and I enjoy the wide variety of cases.  We have spine surgeons here, so I’ve become a spine exposure guy some days.  We have nephrologists, so I do our dialysis access, though more and more frequently I’m telling people they have to go to a real vascular surgeon for their fistulas. We have had a robot that I’ve been using since around 2016 (I didn’t learn to use it in residency), mainly for hernias and colectomies.  I used it for a while on gallbladders but didn’t find it all that useful.  Our trauma is mostly blunt trauma. My practice actually feels a lot like what I used to do at the VA during residency.  A few years back, I was a good team player which ended up with me serving as medical staff vice president and then medical staff president during the start of Covid.  I realized, though, that I don’t really like meetings and have eschewed leadership positions ever since - I’d rather spend my time in the OR.

As for the interesting fun stuff where I can include some pictures, we’ve been quite fortunate to live where red rock canyon country meets the San Juan mountains giving us a lot of access to outdoor fun.  We go on multiday raft adventures a couple times a year and have been lucky enough in the permit lottery to tick off some of the more beautiful trips including the full San Juan, Ruby Horsethief, Desolation Gray, Gates of Lodore, and Grand Canyon (though that was a commercial trip through Megan’s college). Cycling in Durango is probably the biggest local draw and I’ve been pulled into that as well - road, mountain, and gravel.  I was set to do my 3rd LOTOJA this year when I took a hard fall at the beginning of summer and suffered a T12 compression fracture and broke a couple ribs and had to give up my spot.  But, I’m back on the bike now and had a recent trip to Italy with a cycling buddy and completed the Tour of Lombardy course (albeit over 2 days instead of one).  For those interested in finding a fun event to come check out the area, the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic in Spring is an absolutely fabulous road ride with closed roads.  For the mountain biking crowd, the 12 hours of Mesa Verde race is similarly outstanding less than 1 hour west of here.  The snow here isn’t anything like Salt Lake’s but we have some big mountains that allow for some good backcountry turns - I find myself spending more days skinning up than going to the local resort.  It is a great source of pride for me that my daughter has been skinning up to huts since she was 6 (it also might be why she doesn’t like skiing too much).  Anyway, that’s about it for me. I’ve never been on any of the social media platforms, but I welcome visitors, calls, or emails anytime.  My phone hasn’t changed 801-971-4124 and the best email is rob_wrona@yahoo.com. 

PHOTOS:

Whole family - Chloe the dog, Emma, Megan, Rob.  Ruby Horsethief Canyon.

Backcountry ski hut trip in the San Juan Mountains.

Megan, Emma, and Rob at White Sands NP

Megan and Emma coming down the White Rim Road in Canyonlands