Learn more about Dr. Douglas Henstrom, his background and training history on a recent podcast from New Utah Podcast.
NUPodcast: Where are you from, Dr Henstrom?
Dr. Henstrom: I was born and raised in Provo, Utah. I am a native of this land and went to Timpview High School. My wife and I both went to Timpview. I finished school there and went to BYU. My girlfriend at the time, now my wife, is the daughter of a prominent plastic surgeon down there, Blayne Hirsche. It started to get me interested in the things he did and peaked my interest. I would go with him on ER visits. Played footballl at BYU and every summer would intern with Dr. Hirsche and help with surgeries. So I graduated and then went to medical school. I knew I wanted to be a doctor so that was that. I was a corner back on defense.
When I got back from medical school that was actually the first time i went on a medical mission trip. It was started by my father-in-law and called the Hirsche Smiles Foundation. Unfortunately my father and mother-in-law died in a plane accident. They are still around and go to Guatemala. They do mostly clef lips and cleft palates.
Then it was off to Iowa and I got in to one of the better medical schools in the country. It turned out to be a great thing, although the humidity took some time to adjust to for the family. That kind of got me interested in head and neck surgery. Fortunately, Iowa has one of the top 5 programs for ENT in the country. That started me on the ENT side of things and then I matched for an ENT residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. For me it was only about a 3 and a half hour drive to move. I went from cold to colder. You really get exposed to amazing volume of things at the Mayo Clinic.
I come from a family of 7 siblings, my wife comes from 6 so we have a lot of family out here in Utah. Family was really supportive.
My current partner, Dr. Scott Thompson, and I met when he was on a medical mission in Boston. Our fellowship directors would often do medical missions together and we both went to Quito, Ecuador a few times together. I went back to University of Iowa as the Director of Facial Plastic Surgery and was pretty content there. Dr. Thompson called me out of the blue and things were changing for him and his practice. He was very busy and asked if I wanted to come back to Utah to join him. He has a fantastic practice that he built up and there was too long of a wait for patients. We have a lot of family here and it was a good opportunity to come home for my wife and I. We have loved the places we’ve been but knew it was time to come back for us.
To learn more about Dr. Henstrom and our top Utah facial plastic surgeons, click HERE.