Attallah Innis 05/22/19

Professor. Groves

   Who is Dr. Mark Holterman

The decision to choose Dr. Mark Holterman was an interesting thing, because the only thing that interged me about him was the fact that he is an pediatric surgeon. I have so much respect for his field of science that is was not a detriment for me to choose him to write about. Dr. Mark Holterman graduated cum laude from Yale University and then later got a scholarship from the Medical Scientist Training program. He then graduated with his MD and Ph.D. and finished his general surgery residency. This all lead to Dr. Holterman becoming a world renowned physician. He completed all of this in his life and then later strived for more, he completed his fellowship training in Pediatric Surgery at the Seattle Children’s Hospital. Dr. Holterman is a person that will not stop at one great thing but just push himself to achieve more great things. Following all of this he decided to move to chicago to teach and work all over the state. He has interest that include adolescents and obesity amounges adolescence, and he has written many papers discussing these things.

Dr. Mark Holterman exemplified exactly what it means to aspire for more. He spent forty years in medicines and made a name for himself. Dr. Holterman help found the Marian Global Health Fund, with this he has also help found companies through this foundations that specializes in oncology, regenerative medicine, etc. With all of his long hard years of education he was able to create a foundation that will greatly impact global health as a whole. Dr. Holterman is the type of man that bought it himself to be able to help other people. Why Mariam Global health? He mentions that Mariam Global Health invest in technology that impacts the whole world. He calls these scientist impact innovators, these people are people who lack business sense of financial to advance their ideas. The foundation enables them to be able to get their ideas out there and heard to impact the global population and advance global healthcare. How did you make it all happen? What did you do? Dr. Holterman spoke to his business team for a reality check, he need to examine the relative of all of his decisions. The results included: 1) It was a good idea 30 years ago 2) 30 companies are working on the idea currently 3) 30 people in the world suffer from Disease XYZ 4) It would take 30 years to develop 5) 30 Million people could benefit from a better treatment for Disease XYZ !! Find the experts, discuss their needs, develop collaborations, don’t get greedy. Sleep, Shower, repeat. Dr. Holterman shows that you can’t be impulsive when you’re trying to make an impact on the world, you have to consider many different things multiple times over and over again until it comes out as close to perfect as you can get it. As an entrepreneur yourself, what advice do you have for others? He says “Do not be afraid to have individual ideas. Avoid bandwagons. Have a trusted business team, and always run your ideas past them. Have them look for the flaws in your plans.” He seem like a man that is not afraid to lean on others that he trust for help and guidance. I think that most of all it’s important to have that trait when being a doctor because it’s a tough jobs to have and to think you can do everything yourself is outrageous.

Dr. Mark Holterman besides being a doctor is also a person. He has certain things that he wishes he could go back and change just like the next person. What is something that you would tell your younger self? Mark says “Treat your ideas as friends and not as children. It is easier to say goodbye to a friend. Your children may never move out of the attic bedroom consuming time and resources. A valued friend will be welcomed back and bear great fruit or at least bring a good bottle of Shiraz or a six-pack of “Spotted Cow”.” Everyone goes back in their mind and goes through what they want to tell their younger self. He has an amazing personality and he seem to be a funny person. Now everyone goes through failure in life but it’s all about how you handle the failure and how you overcome them. Failure are apart of life and it is all about what happens after the failure that matters. What failure did you have and how did you handle them? Dr. Holterman replies “ I should have recognized the potential negative influences of the Internet on businesses, but I handled it by investing everything I have into my business.” In the end those failure made him a better person, and the way he handle them made him and even better person. I think it’s important to recognize the failures that you had and the way you prove to be better than the failure. Dr. Holterman exemplifies this aspect I think it just makes him a better doctor and it will continue to make him a good doctor.  

Dr. Holterman has written papers that show his willingness to help the young population. Children are a future and whatever can help the live to reach the future is important. He does studies that benefit the youth and his recent study on obesity patient is shown to be promising. He states “ Several studies have shown promising outcomes with LSG among adolescents” (Ejaz 2018).  He wants to better people an ensure their survival during surgery like most surgeon but what puts him ahead of them is his willingness to write it down.  He has shown that by using different techniques you can drastically save lives. He saw something that needed to be revamped and with the help of others they came up with methods. Dr. Holterman is the type of person that believes that things can be better than they already are.

Dr. Holterman is always coming up with new ways to changes something and make it better for patients. Along with the help of others, he has written a paper explain a new course of treatment that will help the patients with short bowel syndrome. As stated in the summary “ Due to the aforementioned progress in surgical technique and medical management, in the near future IT will become the treatment of choice for all patients with SBS” (Benedetti 2003). New ideas is always something that he is apart of. It seems to be a very important factor in his life, to be able to change lives by changing surgically methods.

Studying obesity also seems to be a pattern in his research and something that he really cares about. He also seems to do a lot of work with adolescents, and he has a clear interest in this field of study.  He is all about improvement and change from old to new and he studies what the cares about. The conclusions states “ The SO adolescents demonstrate equivalent short-term weight loss and improved quality of life”( Holterman 2012). The papers that he writes are inspirations to aspire to. Dr. Holterman is the doctor you would want to see because he is going to aspire for more and not settle on one idea. His research involves the improvement of surgery techniques among adolescents.

Dr. Holterman exhibits all the characteristics you would want in a doctor. He is always out for new technique to improve the quality of life for others. He is a world renowned physician and and entrepreneur, and he strived to have others ideas heard along with his own. He worked hard to get where he is today and his hard work as surely paid off. He is not the only one that benefits from his hard work, because his patients get to reap the benefits as well.  He also started his company to benefit other innovators like him, he is that kind of man that want to help other. He is the type of man that want to help other get to where he is, and his company allows that to happen.

Work cited

1. Ejaz, Aslam, et al. “Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy as First-Line Surgical Treatment for Morbid Obesity among Adolescents.” Journal of Pediatric Surgery, vol. 52, no. 4, 2017, pp. 544–548., doi:10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2016.08.023.
2. Benedetti, Enrico, et al. “Surgical Approaches and Intestinal Transplantation.” Best Practice & Research Clinical Gastroenterology, vol. 17, no. 6, 2003, pp. 1017–1040., doi:10.1016/s1521-6918(03)00081-7.
3. Holterman, Ai-Xuan L., et al. “Patterns of Surgical Weight Loss and Resolution of Metabolic Abnormalities in Superobese Bariatric Adolescents.” Journal of Pediatric Surgery, vol. 47, no. 9, 2012, pp. 1633–1639., doi:10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2012.02.002.
4. “Q&A With Dr. Mark Holterman, Pediatric Surgeon, CEO, and Professor.” INTERVIEW, 26 July 2018, interview.net/dr-mark-holterman/.
5. IdeaMensch. “Dr. Mark Holterman – CEO of Mariam Global Health.” IdeaMensch, 28 Dec. 2017, ideamensch.com/mark-holterman/.