Maxillofacial Prosthetics with Dr. Jake England: Reconstructing Faces after Trauma or Cancer

Intro: [00:00:00] We are a resource for learners, including every member of the Livestrong Cancer Institute’s on track educational pipeline from middle school to residency. We are a growing collection of interviews, talks, and experiences that uncover the myths and the uncertainties of cancer and careers in cancer in order to empower and inspire generations of thinkers and leaders.

This is Cancer Uncovered. An education and empowerment podcast by the Livestrong Cancer Institutes.

Laura Pavitt: Hello everyone and welcome back to Cancer Uncovered. My name is Laura Pavitt and I am very excited to share our guest with you today. This month we are uncovering one of the most interesting careers I’ve ever heard of, [00:01:00] maxillofacial prosthetics. And don’t worry if you don’t know what that is. I didn’t either, and I’ve been working in healthcare for almost 10 years now.

It was such an honor to talk with Dr. Jake England. He is a board certified prosthodontist and is currently in a maxillofacial prosthetics fellowship here at Brooks Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. I will let him define what that actually means, but basically he’s an extremely specialized dentist who now treats a variety of patients, including those with cancer, which is why he made the podcast.

In this episode, we’ll dive into Dr. England’s career path, the most fulfilling and most challenging parts of his job, his advice to young people who are considering a career in healthcare, and of course, The patient stories. I will admit this was a tough [00:02:00] one to edit because I wanted to include everything.

I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for being here. Dr. England.

Dr. Jake England: Thank you for having me.

Laura Pavitt: Sure. So we’ll start off just with introductions. If you can introduce yourself and maybe just include your title and the fellowship name and location.

Dr. Jake England: Okay. So my name is Dr. Jake England. I’m a board certified prosthodontist. And I’m currently a fellow in a maxillofacial prosthetics program at Brooks Army Medical Center.

And a prosthodontist is someone that just focuses on full mouth rehabilitation. So, really complex dental needs, lots of dental implants, dentures, crowns and ridges, partial dentures. Um, maxillofacial prosthetics, it’s a subspecialty of prosthodontics. That involves the rehabilitation of patients with defects or disabilities that were [00:03:00] present when a patient was born or Something acquired from either trauma or a disease process.

Laura Pavitt: Okay,

Dr. Jake England: So I mean putting it more simply It is if someone is missing or losing a facial part. We’re in the business of being able to make someone a new face part. So like, for example, a nose or an eye, or if they’re missing a bunch of teeth, um, or if they have a big hole in their palate or face, you know, we’re able to fill those, those defects and, um, And give them form, function, and aesthetics back.

And the goal is always to socially reintegrate somebody back into society, so that they psychologically, you know, they feel good about themselves again, and also so they can function. You know, with eating, for example, or speaking,

Laura Pavitt: Right?

Dr. Jake England: Those are the things that we kind of focus on.

Laura Pavitt: Cool. That’s amazing. [00:04:00] Um, who are your patients usually?

Dr. Jake England: So we have a big variety of patients and so anything from congenital patients. So for example, Cleft lip, cleft palate babies, we will get them ready for by making different types of appliances to. Push their bones closer together as they’re growing and, uh, to stretch out the soft tissue to help, uh, decrease scarring.

Um, another group of patients we will see are head and neck cancer patients.

Laura Pavitt: Okay.

Dr. Jake England: So, for example, if they have a, uh, a tumor or Cancer in their lower jaw mandible that has to be cut out or removed. We can help plan the surgery where, um, we can put dental implants, for example, in your

Laura Pavitt: fibula

Dr. Jake England: and that’s a bone, a non weight bearing bone that we will typically take advantage of and take that bone and regraft it back into the mandible and then, um, connect teeth to that will [00:05:00] also see trauma patients.

So, uh, Burn Patients is a burn center at BAMC, where we’ll see burn patients that have been in automobile accidents, that have been in violent traumatic events. So sometimes patients will be missing eyes, ears, noses, and we can make the prosthetics to replace those body parts. Fascinating.

Laura Pavitt: All right.

Dr. Jake England: Another cool thing about our, uh, the field of maxillofacial prosthetics is that, um, it’s. It’s changed a lot over the last, the last couple of decades, we’ve really, um, become more of a, uh, a digital profession where we take advantage of 3d printers, CNC milling machines. And a lot of what we design is on the computer.

Laura Pavitt: Oh, wow.

Dr. Jake England: Historically, everything was done by hand, but a lot of those artisans are, you know, You know, few and far between these days, but a lot of kids grew up with [00:06:00] computer,

Laura Pavitt: right? That’s what I was thinking as I told you a lot of our listeners are high schoolers or undergraduates And i’m sure they have a lot more experience on computers than most of us

Dr. Jake England: for sure You know, you no longer have to be an expert at sculpting with clothing exactly or um carving things with your hands You can now just with a mouse design something and uh 3d print it or manufacture it with a cnc milling machine,

Laura Pavitt: right?

Um,

Dr. Jake England: you know, if I was going to hire a dental lab technician, someone was, you know, really good with computers, you know, that would be something I would be looking for. Really cool. All right.

Laura Pavitt: Um, so let’s go back a little bit. Can you tell me about your career path? How’d you get here? What is the schooling like?

Dr. Jake England: Okay. So, you know, my career path started when I was in high school, um, at the time I didn’t really know what I wanted to be. And I went to my girlfriend’s house at the time for a dinner and we had, uh, [00:07:00] somebody, uh, one of the guests was an orthodontist

Laura Pavitt: and

Dr. Jake England: focused on braces. And he was talking about, you know, all his vacations that he had went on.

His life sounded very exciting. And I thought maybe I’m going to do that. I went home and told my mom that, you know, that sounded interesting. And then maybe a couple weeks later, my mom was like, Hey, There’s this dental assisting vocational school

Laura Pavitt: that I just saw

Dr. Jake England: that, um, you could do half a day, you know, for the last half of the year of your senior year of high school, and there’s an open house tomorrow, you’re going to go.

And I was like, I don’t know, mom, I don’t know about that. But so we went to the open house and, um, We showed up and I was the only guy in a room full of 20 other girls. As a high school boy, I said, that looks perfect. And, um, so I signed up and it was a [00:08:00] lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. And then, um, I went off to college and I majored in biology and minored in chemistry.

During that time, I also worked as a dental lab technician. That’s where I really decided, you know, really learn to love being in the lab and making stuff with your hands. Yeah. Um, and. So I graduated from, from undergrad and applied to dental school. So I went to dental school and that was four years. Then after dental school I joined the army and I did what’s called a one year advanced general dentistry residency where you just kind of learn advanced dentistry techniques and after that I practiced dentistry for As a general dentist for five years and then I went and did my prosthodontic residency at Walter Reed in Washington, D. C

Laura Pavitt: Okay

Dr. Jake England: At the Naval Postgraduate Dental School And then after that I went and taught prosthodontics at a [00:09:00] two year advanced general dentistry residency at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii and then um I got my boards, became board certified, and then,

Laura Pavitt: as a prosthodontist,

Dr. Jake England: as a prosthodontist. Okay. And then I applied to the subspecialty of prosthodontics, which is maxillofacial prosthetics.

Laura Pavitt: Right, right. Okay.

Dr. Jake England: So it was a long road.

Laura Pavitt: Yeah, that is a long road. Yeah, so,

Dr. Jake England: almost like 13 years.

Laura Pavitt: Um, and then what made you decide to, to specialize in maxillofacial prosthodontics?

Dr. Jake England: So we’ll take a step back first. The reason I went into prosthodontics was because of. I really loved working in a dental laboratory.

And when you’re in the

Laura Pavitt: dental laboratory,

Dr. Jake England: dental laboratory is where you, where all the prosthetics are made. So when you go to the dentist, if you need to get a crown or a bridge or a denture made, that is all made in a dental laboratory. And I worked in one, I got a job in a dental laboratory when I was in college.

Laura Pavitt: Right.

Dr. Jake England: [00:10:00] It’s a lot of fun. If you like, I love it. Arts and crafts. Yeah. Doing stuff

Laura Pavitt: With your hands.

Dr. Jake England: Working with your hands, yeah. Woodworking, right? It it’s like arts and crafts in the mouth. Yeah. In the laboratory. Yeah. And it’s fun. You’re creating. Um, and you know, in today’s dental laboratory, you’re making stuff on the computer working with 3D.

printers and, and CNC milling machines. You don’t really learn a lot of that in dental school. And so I knew I liked to work with my hands and I liked working on the big complex cases. I like solving those riddles in those problems and um, the more complex The case typically it’s a more satisfying reward and more gratifying at the end.

Definitely You change someone’s smile or right. It’s very rewarding. And um, so I applied the process And so I got really good at changing smiles and improving smiles But I just felt that there was another [00:11:00] Level and there was another set of patients that I really wanted to help out. There’s only actually a couple hundred maxillofacial prosthodontist in the

Laura Pavitt: US.

Wow.

Dr. Jake England: So there’s not, it’s, you know, a small population of people. So, um, and

Laura Pavitt: based on what you said about your patients, it seems like it’s something that’s needed.

Dr. Jake England: It is needed. And, um, it’s one thing to give somebody a smile back. That’s great. But, you know, to give somebody Um, you know, the ability to eat again, to speak again, uh, give somebody, you know, a new eye.

So, you know, they can go back outside and, and, and, you know, be normal society. That’s even more important.

Laura Pavitt: Interact with people. Have relationships. For sure.

Dr. Jake England: And that, most of my patients, it’s, they’re not, they typically become, um, you develop, uh, very strong relationships with them because you work with them for so long.

Laura Pavitt: You

Dr. Jake England: get to know them. My patients are constantly [00:12:00] bringing me in cookies and food. And, um, I typically didn’t get that with general dentistry. Okay. So it’s a whole

Laura Pavitt: different level of connection too.

Dr. Jake England: It really is. And

Laura Pavitt: also just the psychosocial. The psychosocial impact of having some sort of disfigurement in your face is huge.

I can’t even imagine.

Dr. Jake England: Yeah. I think that, um, you know, surgeons that are strictly focused on surgery.

Laura Pavitt: Yeah,

Dr. Jake England: there are a lot of times focused on saving someone’s life.

Laura Pavitt: Exactly.

Dr. Jake England: Uh, in my field I’m focused on quality of life,

Laura Pavitt: right?

Dr. Jake England: And you know, that is, yeah, like you said, psychosocial reintegrating somebody back into society.

Um, Giving them function back the ability to eat.

Laura Pavitt: Right. I didn’t know that you did that.

Dr. Jake England: Yeah, some patients cannot without their prosthetics They cannot eat they can’t speak [00:13:00] They can’t swallow without anything without food and water going into their lungs and out their nose. Yeah, and so Prosthetics, you know are they greatly improve their quality of life without it.

They have no quality of life. So yeah I argue a lot of times, if you don’t have a quality of life, you know, why even bother saving a life?

Laura Pavitt: Yeah.

Dr. Jake England: So it’s very rewarding to be able to provide that for the patients.

Laura Pavitt: It is. Um, so in your current work right now, you’re in this fellowship, what does a typical day look like?

Dr. Jake England: So fellowship is a lot better than residency. When I was a prosthodontic resident. My hours were pretty bad. I would typically get there at six, six 30 in the morning and routinely would be there until midnight. It’s you definitely pay your dues, but you’re learning a time during that time. So it’s a three year grind to become a prosthodontist after dental school [00:14:00] fellowships, just one year.

And it’s a typical, uh, normal hours. So I usually get there around, um, 7. 30 and I typically leave around 4 in the afternoon, but during that time I’m, I’m seeing patients, I’m working at the lab, and then, um, there’s also a lot of literature that we read to kind of learn the different techniques and learn about the different types of patients that we treat.

Um, and then after hours there’s a lot of lab work, lots of design work on the computer.

Laura Pavitt: Okay.

Dr. Jake England: In fellowship we also rotate through the different specialties. So we, uh, we rotate through the burn center. We work with, uh, speech pathology a lot. So we rotate through their clinic. We also rotate through ENT. We get to go to the, uh, trauma boards in the hospital, the head and neck cancer boards, the cranial facial anomaly boards.

So we see all different types of patients and we kind of become friends with everybody in the hospital. [00:15:00]

Laura Pavitt: Um, is there a certain type of patient you really love working with, like certain population, certain diagnosis?

Dr. Jake England: Yeah, I would say my two different, or my two favorite types of patients are, uh, I love a full mouth rehabilitation, where you’re giving somebody a whole new set of teeth.

Laura Pavitt: Um,

Dr. Jake England: and then, you know, my second, or maybe equally favorite is, My ocular patients, if they’re getting a, you know, an ocular prosthesis or a new eye.

Laura Pavitt: Yeah.

Dr. Jake England: I love smiles and eyes because, um, you know, they say that the eyes are the window to the soul and a smile is a reflection of the heart. And if you can, you can change somebody’s life by giving them a new smile and helping them show the rest of the world what’s on the inside.

You know, and. Somebody that, you know, it doesn’t feel like they have self worth because, you know, they don’t, you know, maybe their teeth are [00:16:00] destroyed for one reason or another, when you give that back to them, you can help them have confidence again to show the rest of the world who they are on the inside and then.

Same with eyes, you know, being able to look somebody in the eye with confidence when you meeting someone and shaking their hand and to have, you know, dignity and self worth and be confident. There’s just, yeah,

Laura Pavitt: it’s everything.

Dr. Jake England: Nothing better than giving that back to somebody and getting to see them see themselves in the mirror for the first time.

Laura Pavitt: Right. And see that spark of confidence.

Dr. Jake England: Yes. It’s, I would say it’s addicting. It’s addicting. I can see why. Yeah. It’s a great, it’s a great feeling. I can see why. I had one patient that, uh, he was in a bad automobile accident, and, uh, he lost his eye, and he hadn’t had an eye for the last year, and he was getting ready to get married.

Laura Pavitt: Mmm. And

Dr. Jake England: so, he came into the clinic to get a new prosthetic eye. With his fiance and the first time he put it in and he had a pair of [00:17:00] baby blue eyes looking at his fiance Yeah, for the first time again, she started to cry.

Laura Pavitt: Oh those are

Dr. Jake England: the types of Experiences that never get old and they kind of keep you coming back.

Yeah, keep you coming back for more.

Laura Pavitt: Yeah So you’ve you’ve mentioned some of your favorite things, but I’m wondering what are some of the most challenging

Dr. Jake England: I think that, you know, sometimes prosthodontics can be frustrating because not everything always goes to plan and a lot of, a lot of planning and time goes into, to making prosthetics for patients and, you know, when something doesn’t fit or it’s not working out the way you wanted it, just like anything in life, it can become frustrating when you’re having to re do things repeatedly and so, um, Sometimes it can be a little frustrating because the demands of today’s workforce is do more with less.

Absolutely. And so I think, you know, our patient loads are [00:18:00] very high and um, you know, sometimes we don’t have all the human resources we need to help us out. Yeah. And so it can be a little bit daunting at times to get all the work done.

Laura Pavitt: Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, seems like everybody in healthcare is dealing with that same challenge right now.

Dr. Jake England: For sure. When I first got into the field, we had a lot of ancillary staff, lots of assistants, lab technicians. In today’s world, you just don’t, you don’t have the same amount of support. So

Laura Pavitt: it’s changed even since you started your career.

Dr. Jake England: For sure.

Laura Pavitt: Really? And then I was going to ask you, when did you notice that the field kind of switched to this digital, mostly on the computer, working with 3D, 3D printers?

Dr. Jake England: Well, I first started hearing about it when I was in college and I was working in a dental laboratory and One of the ceramists told me, he said, Hey, they have computers out there that someday we’ll be able to make these crowns.

Laura Pavitt: And

Dr. Jake England: I was just like, that’s not [00:19:00] possible. That will never, like, how could that possibly be?

And so fast forward five, six years later, I’m in dental school. I start to hear about, you know, there’s machines that are making crowns. And I wanted to learn how to do it, how to use these. This type of technology. And that was a big reason I went into Frostnomics. And, um, when I got into Frost, it really exploded.

Laura Pavitt: And

Dr. Jake England: now we have CNC milling machines. What is

Laura Pavitt: that?

Dr. Jake England: CNC milling machine. It stands for Computer Numeric Control. So if I design something on a computer, The computer will digitize it into a bunch of code, you know, zeros and ones, for example, and the lines of code go to the mill, which is essentially a fancy router.

If you, if you ever worked in a woodshop or garage, you know what a router is. And so the code will, will [00:20:00] tell the mill exactly how to make the processes. So, so let me take a step back. CEC milling is a subtractive process.

Laura Pavitt: Okay.

Dr. Jake England: So, it’s like, you get a big block of ceramic, wax, or acrylic, and the mill will carve whatever out of that.

Laura Pavitt: Yeah.

Dr. Jake England: So, whether it be a crown, a denture. Um, 3d printing is an additive process. It will build things layer by layer. And so it’s two different ways to kind of get to the same result, but,

Laura Pavitt: but you use both on a daily basis. Yeah.

Dr. Jake England: I would say though, that we’re starting to have the futures in 3d printing.

Laura Pavitt: Oh yeah.

Dr. Jake England: Yes. The 3d printing keeps getting better and better. I think that there’ll come a time where. Everything is made with 3D printer.

Laura Pavitt: Really? Um, what personal qualities do you think it takes to do your job?

Dr. Jake England: Well, you have to be able to be a critical [00:21:00] thinker. None of our patients are the same. You know, everyone comes with their unique situation and problem that needs to be solved.

So you have to be a critical thinker, need to be creative, and you have to be good with your hands. But I also would say that most importantly you have to be a caring person. And I think a lot of patients, just like in life, a lot of them don’t necessarily care how, uh, perfect their prosthetic is. You know, uh, you know, they want it to be able to work and look good.

But I think they equally care about how you make them feel.

Laura Pavitt: Yeah.

Dr. Jake England: If you can, you know, get a patient to feel like you care about them, you get a lot more buy in with the patients. And, uh, you typically end up with better results if everyone’s on the same page. So you have to be caring. And, um, you have to be a hard worker.

So to become maxillofacial prosthodontist, [00:22:00] it takes years of sewing and hard work. So you have to be driven.

Laura Pavitt: Definitely. I really like that it seems like you have a good variety of seeing patients and working in the lab and working on the computer. It’s nice you’re not just seeing patients all day, every day.

Dr. Jake England: Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I love my patients. Yeah. Bye. Seeing patient after patient after patient in the chair, it can become relentless and it, it can be draining. And so getting to go to the lab and decompress and just kind of sit there and just, tune out while you’re making something. Yeah, it’s very, it’s almost kind of calming being in the lab.

Yeah,

Laura Pavitt: I can imagine. I think sometimes it’s hard. It can be hard to find a career, at least in healthcare, that is a combination of patient care and something else.

Dr. Jake England: Well, yeah, variety is a spice of life.

Laura Pavitt: It is. It’s helpful. [00:23:00] Okay. What would you tell learners who are considering a career in dentistry or in healthcare in general?

Dr. Jake England: Definitely consider the, uh, you know, I talked about early on, you know, what maybe my initial motivation was, you know, I heard about how, how sexy that orthodontist lifestyle was, you know, it can be a. Uh, lucrative field to be in, but not necessarily, you know, it’s not a get rich quick scheme and uh, you have to pay your dues.

And, uh, so I would consider that like how long you’re going to be in school for, it’s going to be, I was in school for, and still am, you know, when it’s all said and done about 13 years and uh, you know, college is expensive. Yeah, it is. You know, when I went to dental school, it was about 100, 000 a year and, uh, could have came out with a lot of debt.

So, you know, think about how you’re going to pay for that. I chose to go into the [00:24:00] military and the military paid for all of my education and has continued to give me opportunities that I never thought I would have had. And, uh,

Laura Pavitt: It sounds like you really have to love it too, because it’s not just for the money.

You’re not going to do 13 years of school if you don’t really commit to something and love what you’re about to do.

Dr. Jake England: Exactly. Yeah. I think that you put that perfectly. You know, if it’s not something you think that you truly would love doing. You’d maybe be better off doing something that is get you to work much quicker, right?

It gets you earning much quicker and something that’s gonna be cheaper.

Laura Pavitt: What are some of the Cons of being in the military?

Dr. Jake England: Yeah, just like anything there are pros and cons and There are plenty of benefits to be in the military financial benefits educational benefits Adventures, you know, which are great some of the cons though is that You You know, the military owns you, uh, you are going to move every three to [00:25:00] five years.

And for some people, that’s great. And for me, I’ve had a lot of great assignments, you know, I’ve lived in Washington state, Washington DC, Hawaii, now San Antonio, it’s, it’s been one adventure after another, but you know, if you have to go someplace you don’t want to go,

Laura Pavitt: right.

Dr. Jake England: It doesn’t matter. You’re going to go there.

Laura Pavitt: If you have a family and kids and that gets complicated quickly.

Dr. Jake England: Yes. My, uh, third daughter, Rosalie was born. I was deployed in Kuwait and I fortunately was able to come home just for her birth. And I had to go back to Kuwait three days later. And so, um, the next time I saw her, she was like six, seven or eight months old, something like that.

And so you can be away from your family. Uh, Um, you know, you may have to, when you join the military, you’re joining to be a soldier and you know, there’s always a chance you could be put into harm’s way and that’s [00:26:00] something you have to accept and, um, but, but like everything has its, its pros and cons

Laura Pavitt: is dentistry.

So if you went to just dentists school and came out and were general dentist, is that a four years?

Dr. Jake England: Four years

Laura Pavitt: after undergrad.

Dr. Jake England: After undergrad. Yes. Okay, so

Laura Pavitt: that’s an option for people too.

Dr. Jake England: Yeah, another great option. And that’s what I originally thought I was going to do. I thought I was just going to be a general dentist and private practice.

And then I, last minute, I decided to join the army to pay for school.

Laura Pavitt: Yeah.

Dr. Jake England: After I got my first bill for a hundred thousand dollars. It’s

Laura Pavitt: realistic. It’s practical.

Dr. Jake England: So I joined and, you know, I, I never in my wildest dreams would have.

Laura Pavitt: Yeah, guess

Dr. Jake England: the adventures the army would have, uh, yeah, you know, I think that’s

Laura Pavitt: good to realize too as a young person You don’t always have to know what you’re gonna do for the rest of your life.

I think that becomes too overwhelming sometimes Yeah,

Dr. Jake England: I think that’s uh, it’s a great [00:27:00] point when I first graduated from dental school I thought I just wanted to be a general dentist. Yeah, and when I first came in the army They asked me if I wanted to do the one year advanced general dentistry residency, and I initially said no.

I didn’t want to do any more school. I just wanted to be a general dentist and a wise Colonel told me he said I was a captain at the time. He said Captain England. This is a great opportunity I know you said no, but I want you to know that Sometimes the door of opportunity only opens one time.

Laura Pavitt: And it always

Dr. Jake England: stuck with me.

Laura Pavitt: Oh yeah.

Dr. Jake England: I ended up kind of

Laura Pavitt: like a chilling thing to hear.

Dr. Jake England: Yeah. And I, so I thought about it and I ended up doing the, the one year program and It just kept opening up door after door after door, you know, during the rest of my career. And so, I think there’s a lot of truth to that. Sometimes the door of opportunity only opens once.

You gotta be ready to take advantage of opportunities when they come your way. Be open [00:28:00] minded and, um, just go for it.

Laura Pavitt: Right. Yeah. Do you treat a lot of patients who have been in combat and that’s where their injuries come from?

Dr. Jake England: Uh, yes. So like one example, uh, you know, I have a patient now, he was an IED blast in Afghanistan and, um, he lost both of his ears from the burns that occurred, I think, when his vehicle was on fire from the blast.

And so what we can put, just like dental implants, we have cranial facial implants. Where we put dental implants in his skull and, uh, they had magnets on them. So then we’re able to make silicone ears that connect to the side of the skull. We were able to get his ears back. We can do the same thing with noses.

So we’ll make silicone noses or silicone face parts. There’s some patients that have been blown up where they’re missing half their face.

Laura Pavitt: A

Dr. Jake England: good example for everybody to look up. I wouldn’t call it a high [00:29:00] quality prosthesis, but if you’ve ever seen the show Boardwalk Empire, there’s a character in that, Steve Buscemi, he’s the lead actor in that, but there’s a character in that TV series where, um, he came back from war, and has a bad facial injury, and he wears a, uh, It’s an orbital prosthesis.

And so it’s, uh, he’s missing an eye and a big part of his face. And so it’s like a silicone mask and eye that he wears. Interesting.

Laura Pavitt: I’ve never seen that show. I’ll have to look it up.

Dr. Jake England: Yeah. That’s just maybe one good example, but yeah, there’s just. There’s a lot of different things that we can do. It’s amazing.

Laura Pavitt: I know, I think we could talk about this forever. I want to just keep hearing patient cases, but we should wrap this up.

Dr. Jake England: Yes. I can only

Laura Pavitt: make this 30 minutes.

Dr. Jake England: Well, the last thing I’ll say is the stories that the patients come in with, although they’re very tragic at times, they’re very interesting and fascinating to hear.

There’s a lot of burn patients that come in, hearing the war stories. It’s amazing. [00:30:00] different things people had to go through with their, their head and neck cancer and their room to recovery. It’s very fascinating.

Laura Pavitt: Yeah.

Dr. Jake England: Also inspiring, you know, this spirit of surviving and

Laura Pavitt: just seeing what people can overcome, overcome, continue to live and thrive.

And

Dr. Jake England: yep, it’s very, uh, inspiring. Keeps me humbled. A lot of times when You know, I’m feeling down or bad about myself. You know, my patients teach me just to be happy with, uh, what I still do have. And so I think it’s a, you know, you’re always learning something from your patients in this field. And so, um, I would recommend it to anybody that was interested.

It’s a needed,

Laura Pavitt: it’s

Dr. Jake England: a needed, uh, subspecialty. Hopefully, uh, eventually we train more and more because I think that, uh, You know, unfortunately, cancer and traumatic injuries are not going away.

Laura Pavitt: I know. And,

Dr. Jake England: um, you know, definitely hope this helps somebody, uh, you know, Good. Figure out what they want to do with their grand.

Yeah.

Laura Pavitt: Well, thank you so much for doing [00:31:00] this. I appreciate it.

Dr. Jake England: You’re welcome.

Laura Pavitt: And if anybody wants to reach out to you to find out more, would you be open to that?

Dr. Jake England: Yes, they can. You could throw my email in there, it’s englandandjake at gmail. com. Look me up on Instagram. My handle is snakebite2315 and snakebite2315 That

Laura Pavitt: would be a different podcast episode.

Yes. Well, thank you again, it was nice talking with you.

Dr. Jake England: You’re welcome. Great talking with you too.

Laura Pavitt: Thank you to Dr. Jake England for sharing his time, experience, and wisdom with us today. We could not produce this podcast without guests like Dr. England who volunteer their time to share more about their careers with our listeners. So thank you. If any of you have ideas for other guests or topics that we can uncover, please email us [00:32:00] at livestrongcancerinstitutes at dellmed.utexas. edu and make sure institutes is plural. You can find out more about the Livestrong Cancer Institutes at delmed. utexas. edu and about the Livestrong Cancer Institutes clinic at uthealthaustin. org. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to subscribe. Thank you for listening.