His father was a radiologist and his mother a nurse, so if you assumed Dr. Steven Schmidt was destined to follow his parents’ footsteps and work in the medical field, you’d be correct.
“I wanted to be a quote unquote real doctor which I thought meant I wanted to do internal medicine,” Schmidt says. “They’re the doctors that … figure out what’s wrong with you. Either they treat you or they send you to someone who can. So, they’re sort of the captain of the ship of overall health. So that’s kind of where I wanted to go when I was in medical school.”
However, once Schmidt attended medical school at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, his career path shifted.
“So in medical school, what you do, at least when I was in medical school, you had two years of books and then two years of clinical training and the way you’d want to do it is in your third year, take what you really wanted to go into last, so that you could be a more oriented student and perform better so you’re not green and don’t know how to do anything or where anything is in the hospital.
“You do what you don’t want to do first, so I did surgery first. And my very first rotation was plastic surgery for three weeks. After that nothing even came close in my mind to being as interesting and varied as plastic surgery.”
Schmidt knew after his first plastic surgery experience he would pursue a career in plastic surgery.
“My very first case, which I will never forget, was a doctor who is still a friend of mine to this day, who was doing a nasal reconstruction for skin cancer on someone’s nose and then went down and took off fungal infected toenails at the end of the procedure on the same patient,” Schmidt says. “And that sort of describes what plastic surgery is. We’re much more variety than what people realize.”
When on the job, Schmidt enjoys meeting new patients and working in the operating room and office with his co-workers. Some of his best memories have been made working with his nurses, staff and colleagues, he says.
His mother taught him to treat others with kindness, he says. A lesson he learned well.
“She always taught me be nice to the nurses because they will make or break your life,” Schmidt says. “And not only that, it made life a lot more fun. One Thanksgiving in Philadelphia, I organized on my favorite floor of nurses, three different Thanksgiving meals on the same floor. We had turkey, we had everything for the three different shifts. It was great.”
Schmidt completed his residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania – General and Plastic Surgery. He also completed a fellowship in hand surgery.
He underwent some additional and unique training while schooling in Pennsylvania.
“While I was in plastic surgery, I also attended a theological seminary,” Schmidt says. “I didn’t get a degree. I’m one semester short of master’s in Divinity at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. It was very worthwhile. I’m glad I did it. I had a lot of interest in it.”
When Schmidt isn’t in the operating room, he’s spending time with his family, bicycling, fixing old cars or exploring the United States with his family and capturing life’s moments through photography.
“I enjoy traveling,” Schmidt says. “I’ve really enjoyed the various state national parks. We go camping or hiking, things like that. One of my favorite vacations was camping around Lake Michigan to the U.P. and the lower peninsula so that was a lot of fun.”