Local Plastic Surgeon Devotes Time to Helping Students Along Their Medical Paths

By Jordan Rausch
Hottytoddy.com intern
jvrausch@go.olemiss.edu

Dr. Daniel Shell is a family man, a board-certified plastic surgeon and a mentor who believes that everyone should have the chance to follow their dreams. He believes in the Oxford community so much that he built his practice, Shell Plastic Surgery, here. 

After spending four years attending the University of Mississippi Medical School for his undergraduate degree, the married father of three had his sights on Oxford. After a couple of years in the field, Shell became a plastic surgeon at Baptist Memorial Hospital.

Dr. Daniel Shell (middle, back) and his staff at Shell Plastic Surgery. Photo provided.

Shell has always been a family man from the very beginning. As a child, he looked up to his father, also a plastic surgeon, and all the good work he did for his community and around the world. Shell’s father frequently goes overseas to help underprivileged families with surgeries that are needed but the family might not be able to afford. Shell had been surrounded by the practice his whole life, but it wasn’t until an incident when he was 13 years old that he really got into plastic surgery.

He watched his father preform a a pioneering surgery where he took tissue from a young Bolivian girl’s back and replanted it into her leg after she was bitten by a snake.

“That was the coolest thing in the world,” Shell said.

Others thought that the girl was going lose her leg, but after the surgery she was able to walk out of the hospital. Shell saw something so ground-breaking done to help a girl and then he knew that this was something he could do for the rest of his life.

He now performs innovative surgeries just like his father. Fifty percent of his practice is reconstructive surgeries.

“I’m rebuilding someone’s face after a cancer resection, or rebuilding a woman’s breast after a mastectomy,” he said. 

In addition to performing surgery, Shell sees himself as a mentor to University of Mississippi students.

“I get a lot of gratification (from mentoring),” he said.

He helps mentor pre-med students, nurse practitioner and physician assistant students. His students are one of his greatest passions, he said, and he is always willing to sit down and talk to them about anything, from their studies, their worries about the next chapter in their life or just about “plain old life.”

Shell takes students under his wing who are going through pre-med and other medical related programs, helps them apply to medical school each year and helps them realize their potential and just what being a doctor is all about. He had such a great mentor growing up that he likes to follow in the footsteps and help the next generations of doctors.

One of his mentees this year, Coleman Killorin, had nothing but positive things to say about Shell.

“My time with Shell has been nothing short of amazing,” Killorin said. “He is definitely more than I ever could have asked for in a mentor.”

Shell is someone that has made Killorin into the person and future doctor that he is today.

“We went to dinner last week after I had found out some upsetting news and he helped me realize that everyone’s path into the medical world is different and it does not define your success,” Killorin said.

Shell has always been supportive of his students, and he’s also supportive of his employees. 

“He is the type of doctor that really gets to know his patients, listens to them and takes care of them,” said former employee Jennifer Terrell.