Nolan (Host): Welcome to Healing Heroes, PDX, the podcast series from specialists at Shriners Children's, Portland. Today we're introducing our newest doctor. I'm Nolan Alexander, and I'm excited for us to get to know Dr. Natalie Zeman. Welcome Dr. Zeman. Could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Natalie Zusman, MD: Yeah, thanks so much. So I am a very energetic and passionate pediatric orthopedist surgeon. I spend a lot of my time working on the lower extremity, but I will do. Trauma. That's pretty much anything excluding the spine. And I'm a Pacific Northwest native, born and raised right here in Portland, and I'm very excited to be here.

I'm excited to be on staff. It's been a long time coming.

Nolan (Host): Well, that's wonderful and so special from the place that you grew up in to be back here in Portland. And it sounds like you're similar to other doctors. You know, Many doctors at Shriners have had different journeys that led them here. How did you initially become interested in orthopedics as a career path and why?

Pediatrics.

Natalie Zusman, MD: It actually more of found me. My older sister broke her wrist for the first time when I was about two years old. She fell off the back of one of the Fisher-Price slides and I tod downstairs yelling Mandarin. Broke her wrist. I don't even know how I knew what a wrist was at that age or how that even could be like the correct anatomic place, but she broke her wrist a total of five times.

She doesn't have osteogenesis imperfecta. She just was a little too active and a little too uncoordinated. And so I pretty much was raised with a pink short arm cast. In my life. So, orthopedics tell me at a very young age. And then my mother had a soft tissue sarcoma when I was eight that had to be resected.

And so I then spent the eight to nine age essentially like wicking a soft tissue wound that broke down as often happens with sarcoma resection. So by the time I got to. Undergrad, I knew I was interested in medicine and I knew I was interested in the musculoskeletal system.

And I graduated from college a little early and the only job I got, because this was around 2010, we were right after that 2008 recession was actually doing a research in orthopedic spine surgery. So that. Continued me along this journey. So by the time I got to medical school while I promised my mentors, I would keep an open mind.

I truly wasn't interested in anything else, and I actually was a medical student at this hospital rotating when I found out I matched into orthopedic surgery. So that kind of, for me, brought it full circle.

Nolan (Host): Wow. That's such a unique story and. In between there, I've been told that the path to pediatric orthopedic surgery can be quite long. Can you tell us a little bit more about your training?

Natalie Zusman, MD: Yeah, absolutely. So I was a medical student here at Oregon Health and Science University, and because I had done research in that department, spent. Extra time with that faculty there. 'cause I liked them so much. And then in your fourth year of medical school, you do these away rotations, which are like audition rotations.

You go and check out other places and get different flavors. And I went over to the East coast because I thought that would be fun and cool when I picked these wonderful big cities, but found that my, like personality was not well matched for the East Coast. So I knew for residency, I was like, well, I, better stay on the west coast.

And I actually became a reside. At OHSU, I loved the faculty and I really loved the way they approach their training. I feel like it's really favorable for the trainee and it keeps the education as sort of the core principle of much of the faculty. And then as I was going through the process and looking at.

Pediatric orthopedics. I sat down with certain people like Michelle Welborn and went through lists, tried to figure out where I might be a good match, and I ended up at Children's Hospital, Los Angeles, which is a very fun, a very challenging fellowship because you are an attending, while you are a fellow, so you take your own.

Independent call while you're down there. And that was fun and challenging and stress provoking and all of the things. And that kind of finished out my year of training. I was incredibly fortunate that while I was down at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, one of the faculty surgeons who were there.

Who specializes in hips. She actually was pregnant and became more pregnant as the year went on, and so her specialty is hip preservation and, also baby hip developmental hip dysplasia. And so. She really trained me and my co-fellow to be able to independently perform those surgeries. So in that year of pediatric orthopedics, I did even more time dedicated to like young adult hip preservation.

And so that was also a experience that I'm incredibly grateful for.

Nolan (Host): And then to make it full circle as you told us about. Out. Coming back to Shriners Children's, Portland, it seems like that's more than just a footnote for you. It seems like your journey coming back to Portland really matters to you.

Natalie Zusman, MD: Portland's a very special community. We have a huge mix of people who are really active and really love to use their bodies. And then we also have a lot of catchme for the entire, this is a very large state and there's really a desert of pediatric orthopedists outside of the city, so you really do need to be.

I would say mindful of when you're sitting down for a 15, 30 minute clinic visit, that that family maybe drove six hours to see you. And then as part of the Shriners organization, we also see people from Idaho and Alaska and certain other places end up getting referred here as well.

Nolan (Host): that's so important to have that perspective. And you certainly get that from understanding the history there and in your head. History there too. So since you've been back in 2025, how's your latest experience been?

Natalie Zusman, MD: It's been wonderful. I actually spent two years at a different institution in town first and so. Having had a very different experience and then coming over here has just been a breath of fresh air because one of the things that I love to do is to take care of really complicated patients or complicated problems, and that's really hard to do outside of.

The Shriner system, I would say for two really huge reasons. One if you have a child who has complicated needs or a complicated issue, the families really want to be, I would say, embraced by a system that's set up for that. No one really wants to try to seek out healthcare for their complicated child and get any sort of resistance that because the child.

Has a complicated problem that should negatively impact their care. And that was something for me that really wasn't sitting very well previously. And so I was really excited that one of the lower extremity surgeons was retiring. And so there was an opening so I could better serve those patients.

And the other reason why this particular team here at the Shriners Portland is so special is because there are. So many different partners to choose from. if you have a question or there's, let's say there's a surgery coming up and you know it's going to be hard and it would be better done with two sets of surgeon hands in the room, that there's just such a breath of experience here that you never feel alone.

And I do feel that the patients are better served that way.

Nolan (Host): you've discussed this, but I'm kind of curious more from putting that all together from something you touched on before about trying to understand the patient and just the specific area of Portland and the state of Oregon, too. What would you like to tell patients is a benefit of coming to you and our team at Shriners Children's for their orthopedic care?

Natalie Zusman, MD: That when you come in the door here, you are immediately embraced by the pediatric perspective. The people who are here want to serve children. They are here because they care about children and. It's really any child who has a musculoskeletal need, you can come in for our fracture clinic.

I love telling people about the fracture clinic because so frequently people in the outer community outside of Portland, they have a pediatric orthopedics issue and they can't get care 'cause no one will see a child patient and then they. Are left at a loss of how can I best take care of my child with this injury?

And we can tell them like, you can come to the fracture clinic and you will be seen, and we will get it figured out. So that's really helpful. And then the flip side of that is if you have a child who has a complex problem, you can come, you can be seen.

And as Dr. Bernstein likes to tell me I don't need to have an answer right away. I can tell the family, I'm gonna think on this. I'm gonna talk to my partners and I'm gonna get back to you. And so we can move the patient's care forward and that's something that's kind of unique to this place.

Nolan (Host): You spoke earlier about wanting to help families for complicated issues, you know, along those lines, do you have specific areas of interest?

Natalie Zusman, MD: Yeah, my first. Love is the developing hip. Whether it's a infant who's born with hip dysplasia or the 18-year-old who has a complicated neuromuscular hip dislocation, I really love. Hip, and that's been something I've been passionate about since I was a medical student and saw my first perce tabular osteotomy, which is just a very complicated pelvic surgery that we can perform for hip dysplasia or neuromuscular hip issues.

So I love the hip. I think it's the best joint. I call the shoulder the confused hip because it has. A little too much freedom of motion. And then I also love taking care of children who have cerebral palsy or other sort of, neuromuscular type conditions. Some of those have crossover because a lot of children with cerebral palsy or other neuromuscular conditions do have needs involving the hip.

But a lot of my passion for that patient population is to best serve those families.

Nolan (Host): An important pillar of Shriners Children's mission is education and research. Could you share more about your practice from an academic perspective?

Natalie Zusman, MD: Oh, absolutely. So one of my favorite kind of nerd activities is research. Most of my research in the past has been on DDH or other hip conditions. I also really do love thinking about trauma and infection because. a child doesn't wake up and say like, oh, today I am gonna fall off the monkey bars.

An adult might wake up and go, today I am gonna go get on my motorcycle. But a child usually doesn't have that sort of premeditation. And then frequently you're meeting that child or that family and they are gobsmacked by the situation they are in. And to be able to step into that situation and help take care of them is.

I feel it's kind of an honor. And so I love to spend some time thinking about trauma and also infection is a similar situation. It's not usually something that the kid's like, well, I'm gonna scrape my toe and then have this horrible infection in my leg. So I love thinking about those because there's so many things you can think about for outcomes in optimizing their care.

So those are two areas that I do try to spend a lot of time for research. And I also love writing textbook chapters. One because it's so time intensive to read about the conditions, but also because in doing so, you're often discussing and networking with other pediatric orthopedists across the state and country.

And so those are two things that I really love as well.

Nolan (Host): I love that perspective and I wanna close it out with one last question. What do you like to do outside of work? Have any hobbies?

Natalie Zusman, MD: Yes. So kind of the two main things I love doing outside of work is I am chasing around a barely 2-year-old boy who. Loves to jump off of things and I expect any day now will be put into a spike at gas by one of my partners. Um, so I spend time with him and my husband and our lovely 7-year-old golden retriever who does not care currently that she's getting food thrown at her 'cause then she gets to eat it.

And then my, personal hobby when I'm not trying to keep that. Group together is I really do enjoy running and that's one of the nice things about being back in Oregon is it's such a running, friendly environment.

Nolan (Host): Well, what a wonderful family. What a wonderful job and calling that you have. Thank you so much for joining us today, and we're so excited to have you back at Shriners Children's Portland. This is Dr. Natalie Zeman. Thank you so much.

Natalie Zusman, MD: Yeah. Thank you so much for your time.

Nolan (Host): And that concludes this episode of Healing Heroes PDX, with Shriners Children's, Portland. Head on over to our website@shrinersportland.org. If you enjoy this podcast, please share it on your social channels and check out the entire podcast library. For topics of interest to you, I'm Nolan Alexander, and this is Healing Heroes, PDXA.

Shriner's Children's Portland podcast. Thanks for listening.