Maggie McKay: It's always good to get to know the person behind the doctor. So we're excited to get to know Dr. Tim Jancelewicz today.

He is a Surgeon at Le BonHeur Children's Hospital. I'm Maggie McKay. Welcome to the Peds Pod by Le BonHeur Children's Hospital. Thank you so much for being here, Dr. J. Would you please introduce yourself?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Nice to meet you Maggie. Um, thank you for having me on today. My name is Tim Jancelewicz. I introduce myself to the kids and the families as Dr. J because it's just a lot easier than that long Polish name. But Dr. J, I am the Interim Division Chief of Pediatric General Surgery at BonHeur Children's Hospital.

And the Associate Program Director for the Pediatric Surgery Fellowship. And I have been here at Le BonHeur for almost 11 years and uh, loving Memphis. We're very happy here.

Host: I bet. So, you originally are from Canada. What brought you to Le BonHeur?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Well, the sort of cliched story is, it was a girl. My wife's from Alabama. We met when I was a resident, a surgery resident in California, in San Francisco.

Host: Oh, nice.

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: And then I dragged her up back to Canada for a couple of years when I trained to become a pediatric surgeon in Toronto. And it was pretty cold.

And my wife made a deal with me and said, look, I'll put up with two years of this. But your first job is going to be down closer to where my family is. And so, we looked at jobs in the area in Memphis. It's close enough to Alabama to have access to her family uh, and help us with our kids, and it's been a great spot to be.

Host: That's fair. Happy wife, happy life, right?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: A hundred percent.

Host: Tell us about your expertise.

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Pediatric surgeons are known as the last great generalists in surgery, meaning that we're specialists in children, but we really do a little bit of everything, with some exceptions. And that's one of the reasons that I became a pediatric surgeon, is I love the variety. Personally, I have an interest in neonatal disease, so babies born with bad problems that need an operation to fix.

 And I've focused my research on a condition called congenital diaphragmatic hernia or CDH, which is when you're born with a hole in your diaphragm or breathing muscle and all of your organs are in your chest and it causes babies to be born with difficulty breathing. And I have written a lot about that condition over the course of my research career. I have some interest in what's called extracorporeal life support, or ECLS or ECMO, which is a very advanced invasive modality, which involves heart lung bypass for very, very sick patients. And it's a challenging modality that requires a lot of teamwork. It's very challenging.

And over time I've come to terms with it. I used to be very scared of it. Nowadays I understand it a lot better and uh, we're trying to make our outcomes as good as they can be here at Le BonHeur in in terms of ECLS.

Host: And you could work anywhere. What do you think sets Le BonHeur apart from other hospitals?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Well, part of it's the hospital and part of it is, is the City of Memphis. You cannot separate an institution from where it is. Memphis has a lot of opportunity here. Besides the low cost of living, it's really kind of a unique city with a broad diverse population of people. And it's just lot of friendly, wonderful, amazing people that we've met over the years here, and it really has become our home.

But what attracted me to to Le Bonheur was that it was the only game in town. There's no other dedicated children's hospitals for the surrounding 150 miles around Memphis. And that means that there's a huge population of patients that need good pediatric surgical care. And we see absolutely every single condition.

And so it's been a really exciting career for me so far. You never know who's going to walk through the door, what kind of problems they're going to have, and you have to be kind of quick on your feet and figure it out. So it's been a great job. You know, I had a five year plan when I came here. I didn't know that I would stay, but it has just become a great career for me.

Host: That's so nice. What was your first job and what did you learn from it? Like your first, first, like, high school job or whatever.

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Oh, I was a stock boy or bag boy slash stock boy at a grocery store. It was, actually I have really fond memories of it. It was, trying at times, I suppose. Being on the front line, dealing in service is a tough job. If anybody's worked retail or service before, it can be a humbling experience. It's kind of a good first job, I think.

Host: So what would you say you learned from it? What was your takeaway? How to deal with the public or?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Yeah, I learned that not everybody's really very nice. And some people are nicer than others. People don't treat you well when you're in a kind of subservient position, I guess, as like a stock boy or somebody bagging groceries. You don't get treated well by everybody, and I learned that, well, you know, that person doing that job is a, you know, that's a human being, and you got to treat everybody with the same amount of respect.

You never know who, why they're there, what their life story is. And I just was taken aback by how some people just didn't have that kind of respect for all of humanity, so.

Host: My best friend said once, I always think like, that's somebody's kid, they have a mom, they have a family. And I'm like, that's, it's so true. Sometimes we don't see them as human. It's bad. It's a bad thing. Okay. So tell us about your family.

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Well, my wife is really my rock and my foundation. So she's, she took care of me all through residency. You know, she was a recovery room nurse when I met her in California, in San Francisco, when I was training. Now she had a no doctor dating policy. And fortunately we met at a bar on Fillmore Street in San Francisco and she didn't believe me when I said that I was a resident at the hospital that she worked at, until I showed up at the OR front desk and introduced myself the next day. And so she really has been my foundation and supported me through my training. And then we start, we had our first kid when I was a Chief Resident at UCSF, and that was Grayson, who is now 13 years old. And then I, we had our second kid towards the end of my fellowship training.

So, while being waist deep in snow in Toronto and being stuck at home alone with a young kid, my wife then had our second child, our second son while I was in training. Actually, I was doing an appendectomy when she went into labor and I had to get somebody to cover for me and run over to the delivery hospital to get there just in time for my son to be born. And so, and then we moved to Memphis and then we had our daughter here in Memphis in 2015, Perry, who's now eight. And so my middle son, Bennett is 11 and my oldest Grayson is 13.

Well, they're the center of our lives. You know, my wife and I spent all our time outside of work taking them to various sports and to events and doing things with them.

 And it's been great to raise them here in Memphis. One great feature of Memphis for us is, where we live. We live in Midtown. We live right beside the Memphis Zoo, actually two houses away. We're two houses in from the entrance to the zoo. And we actually are, I would say my house is our sixth family member because we have this big old house who requires a lot of maintenance and the love to keep it going. But we love our big old house and we love Overton Park and we love the zoo and everything. We also have a lot of dogs,

uh, and chickens actually.

Host: Oh, who takes care of the chickens?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Well, my wife is the expert on all of that, but I built the chicken coop and the fencing and all of that. So I deserve some credit, but she, she's really the expert on the chicken husbandry. But

my kids helped raise them. We raised them from chicks and it was a learning experience for them and they their share as well.

Host: Okay. So how is it having a teenager? I know you're only one year in, but

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Yeah, not even, he just turned 13 in September. It's a new world.

Every age, you know, as you mentioned, you has its different challenges. But 13, we're still discovering.

Host: So of course your family, what else are you passionate about outside of your work? Like what's your hobby when you have free time, what's your favorite thing to do?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Well, I didn't used to do this before I moved here, but I have, we love food. But I actually started cooking. So I will experiment and make more elaborate meals on occasion if I have time. I love relaxing and cooking food. To me it's a lot like operating, just kind of, using your hands and your mind and, just kind of relaxing. I just love cooking. And so and fortunately my kids love food as well. And so, we love to make food at home, but we also love to go and eat out as well.

Host: Do you have a favorite cooking show or a favorite chef?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Ooh, yes. Not a show. I mean, we don't, get to watch much, but I will say that Thomas Keller, who's the chef at French Laundry is probably my hero in terms of the chef world. That's the restaurant that my wife and I went to that when I proposed to her.

In wine country, we went to, yeah, we went to the French Laundry. It was like, it was amazing.

Host: That's a beautiful place to propose. Was she surprised?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: I think she was, she probably knew, at least some part of her knew that was going to happen but I had like the photographer hiding out in the shrubs to like, like take secret pictures and all, so it was great.

Host: Well, good job. That's a beautiful setting. Um, so what's your signature dish?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: That's a tough one to answer. It varies because if I make one dish too often, my wife says, oh, okay, this again. It's kind of get bored of it. So I try and introduce new things all the time. But I got to say a good old staple is chicken thighs. Actually, it's pretty versatile. Lots of different ways to cook those.

Host: If you could travel anywhere in the world, Dr. J. And time and expense were not in the mix, it didn't matter, where would you go? If you had all the time and it was all paid for.

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: My wife and I are beach addicts. We go to Aruba as often as we can but my dream really is to go to the South Pacific, to Haiti or Bora Bora or something like that, just, you know, one of those little bungalows or houses that are over the water, that would be awesome. Have the glass floor with the fish swimming by, that'd be great.

Host: And the wild boar roaming around. That's a little unsettling.

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Oh yeah, I don't think about that.

Host: Yeah, it's okay. It's fun. Okay. So what's your favorite music? Are you into music?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Yes, I play the piano. So, that's actually one of the first things I bought when I had my first real job was a baby grand piano. And I love musicals, and in fact, just last week we saw Les Mis at the Orpheum and then I got out my old Les Mis piano music and played all the hits and my wife got kind of sick of me playing the same song over and over again. And uh, you know, I play, I love all kinds of music, but right now I'm really into Taylor Swift. Partially because my daughter and I are going to go to the concert up in Toronto later this year. And she is just 100 percent a Taylor Swift girl, so. Yeah, so I'm trying to go through the tracklist of her concert and try and memorize all the lyrics so we can hang out together.

Host: That's a good girl, dad, if I ever heard one.

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: They actually make Taylor Swift dad hats. I don't know if you know that. You can buy a dad hat off the Taylor Swift website.

Host: Do you have one?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: No, I've kind of given the hint to my wife that that might be a good gift for me, but she hasn't caught on yet. So hopefully,

Maggie McKay: Well you better get it before the concert. Okay, so, what's one thing about you that your patients don't know? That's kind of a fun fact.

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Well, there is that Taylor Swift thing. But then there's also the chickens. I don't think most of my patients know that we have chickens in the backyard in Midtown. And actually, you're not supposed to have more than six chickens.

Host: Oh,

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: And we had up to 18 at one point. No roosters, though. It's illegal to have roosters because they're too loud.

Host: They sure are. What is the most challenging thing about your job?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: With every success that you have with a child, there's going to be that reminder that there's another kid who maybe didn't do so well. And it can be challenging when you're having a rough run or somebody's had a bad outcome where you just get depressed. It's tough. You know, you walk through the ICU every day to round on your patients and you've got some kids who are getting better and some kids who aren't and I still have to do my job and go in and do the best I can for every patient but you know, we're humans as well and seeing sick kids is not easy.

It's just not. And so, you know, there's some days where I get home and I open my bottle of wine a little bit earlier than the day before. Um,

Host: Understandably.

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: You just got to keep going. You got to keep going.

Host: Yeah, right. Did it make it harder after you had your own kids to deal with sick kids?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Yes, Yes, it was harder, I think, for my wife because she was a recovery nurse and was a nurse in the hospital, and after we had kids, she couldn't stand it anymore to see sick kids, and so she stopped being a nurse in the hospital at that time.

Yes, it made it more difficult in some ways, but in other ways, I am more prepared because I kind of understand a little bit more what a parent, a new parent, is going through.

Host: Right.

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: I know what they want to hear from me and what they don't want to hear and I know what they need to hear. And so it's become in some ways easier, I think, to take care of kids after having my own kids.

Host: Right.

In your mind, what makes a good doctor?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: A good doctor is someone who knows that they don't know. And has a lot of smart friends. And doesn't hesitate to call them. Not a day goes by that I don't ask for help from somebody who I, I need at that moment. I don't believe in doing everything on my own. I think that the hospital is a group of people that's together for a reason. It's not a group of individuals. It's a group of people who are working together to take care of a child. And so a good doctor is someone who is humble and able to ask for help whenever it's needed.

Host: Dr. J. What's your philosophy in life? What mantra do you live by?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Well I, I've always looked at life through the eye, tried to look at life through the eyes of a child. I think of myself as kind of a big kid. A lot of pediatric surgeons actually are kind of, not childish, but big kids. We just try and have fun and keep a positive outlook on life and try and find the joy and discovery in every day.

One of the greatest joys of my life has been reliving the things that I love to do when I was a kid with my own children. It really has been wonderful to kind of do all the kid stuff and I still do all that kid stuff, it's great.

Host: Yeah, that's the blessing of having children, one of the blessings. Well, is there anything else you'd like us to know about you that we didn't ask?

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: Well, we kind of hit it. I think it's really important to get outside and exercise, and that's another big part of my life. I do a lot of CrossFit or try to.

Host: Oh, that's hard.

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: But Memphis is very, very hot, but I've learned that I love the heat a lot more than I love the cold. Although I do like skiing and I love the summer a lot more than the winter. And so I'm surprised. I thought it would be too hot here for me, but I love the heat down here in Memphis.

Host: Yeah. Especially, yeah being from Canada. Well, Dr. J., this has been so much fun getting to know you a little bit better. Thank you so much for making the time.

Tim Jancelewicz, MD, MA, MS: My pleasure. It really, really had a great time. Thanks, Miss Maggie. Appreciate it.

Host: Thank you. Again, that's Dr. Tim Jancelewicz, and you can learn more about Le BonHeur and its pediatric surgeons like Dr. J by visiting lebonheur.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. I'm Maggie McKay.

Thanks for listening. This is the Peds Pod by Le BonHeur Children's Hospital.