Spotlight on Matthew Jenkins, MD

Matt Jenkins MD became a doctor to help people and an orthopedic surgeon specifically to have the ability to fix problems, see them improve and have a real effect on patient’s lives. “Watching my patients get better and regain the abilities they once had is the best part of my job,” he says. He looks forward to utilizing new techniques and advances in technology to better serve his patients. “We now are able to offer patients with significant shoulder deformity from arthritis a new 3D custom templating based on CT scans when replacing their shoulder. This allows us to restore their anatomy more precisely without any guesswork in the operating room.” Dr. Jenkins is also pleased to offer patients the latest and most advanced techniques in arthroscopic rotator cuff repair and reconstruction.

How does he relax in his free time? “I spend a lot of time in the outdoors with my wife and kids.”  Recently, he went spelunking with his four- and six-year-old children. He and his wife (also a local physician) took them to the Ape Caves in Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. “We were very proud of our kids’ climbing skills as they climbed up two eight-foot walls to make the underground trek through the caves for over a mile.” The kids are now in training to climb Mount St. Helens in 2019. He enjoys growing vegetables and fruit in his home garden and also likes to hybridize new varieties of tomatoes. This year he’s grown a new variety of large sun sugar tomato that is the size of a baseball!

His favorite ‘90s jam: “Even Flow” by Pearl Jam. What Star Wars character would he most like to be?  “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” the legendary Jedi Master and Luke Skywalker’s mentor. “My son would definitely want to be Darth Vader and my daughter wants to be Jedi Ahsoka Tano.”

His favorite holiday is Halloween. “My wife restricted me to a rotation of only four themes due to storage space restrictions. So far the themes are giant spiders, haunted pumpkins, undead pirates and zombies.” The moms in the neighborhood seem to avoid his front yard in October on spider years. “I’ve made a new prop for this year which is a four-foot-wide tarantula with a remote control car inside that chases people.” He also builds his own animatronics with compressed air and remote triggers. 3D projection illusions are a specialty as well.

What do most people not know about him? “My wife and I got engaged on the top of Mount Shasta.”  And he has the picture to prove it!

When asked how many pennies would fit in the room we were sitting in, “a lot” was his first response.  In typical man-of-science fashion after he thought about it he changed his mind: “this room is about 15 by 12 by 10. This is pretty much a volume calculation problem. I’ll do the calculations and get back to you.”