Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Mark Schultzel.
Hi Dr. Schultzel, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
We came to San Diego originally in 2001 to start college at UC San Diego, and we fell in love with the city. We decided that our goal would be to start our medical practices here and serve the community we came to call home. Mark stayed along for medical school, but ultimately, our training took us to the San Francisco Bay Area, Kansas City, New York City, Houston, Los Angeles, and even Tokyo, but by 2016 we both made it back home to San Diego to start our careers. We are both part of the multi-specialty group, United Medical Doctors, representing the practice in the fields of orthopaedic surgery (Mark) and robotic general and colorectal surgery (Matt) and are proud to be surgeons who are part of the Sharp Healthcare system. It’s been an incredible experience to build parallel practices in the same group, as who would have thought that a bone doc and a “back-end” doc would be working together!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road to success is paved with challenges. We both had to keep this in mind, especially considering the hyper-competitive healthcare market of San Diego. Even though we as physicians claim to be “professionals,” this competition can sometimes lead to less than professional interactions with competitors and colleagues alike. Through focusing on compassionate and empathetic patient care, harnessing our cutting-edge training to serve the community, and creating a supportive team of colleagues, we have made a conscious effort to rise above the less-than-professional behaviors we sometimes encounter. This has made all the difference in keeping the level of care provide the highest possible because our only goals are achieving excellent patient care and the best patient outcomes.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Matt has just completed 1500 robotic surgical cases since his career started and has completed the first case series of single-port robotic cholecystecomies (gallblader removal) to be performed in the USA. This is no small feat for a private practice surgeon, especially with so many other surgeons and a large university hospital in town.
Mark was just inducted as a fellow in the American Orthopaedic Association (AOA), an honor society selecting out the top 7% of orthopaedic surgeons who have distinguished themselves in leadership, community service, and high-quality surgical care. He was also named an “Emerging Leader” by this organization.
Both of us are the most proud of our work with pre-medical, medical, and physician assistant students. We love having trainees to mentor and encouraging them to seek careers in surgery. We are known (perhaps infamously) for having an “entourage” of students and team members working with us. We love this because we feel strongly about creating a positive atmosphere in the clinic and OR that is both welcoming and team-work-focused. Medicine (and surgery in particular) can be lonely and stressful, and there is a stigma about surgeons that we’re all mean and grumpy. We hope to change that narrative and show that surgery can be fun and stimulating and that the environment can be exciting and interesting.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
We learned to scuba dive as youngsters off the coast of Kaua’i. During our final examination dive, we were greeted by a school of ocean sunfish, which were enormous compared to us! It was unique to see these fish group into schools, and they came very close to us as they became curious. Observing these majestic fish and getting to share their habitat with them was a bucket-list adventure and really piqued our interest in scuba diving. We’re now total scuba fanatics as a result of this experience and try to travel the world during our rare opportunities at free time to explore the underwater world.
Contact Info:
- Website: Mark: www.sdorthodoc.com ; Matt: www.sdcolons.com
