Jayson Terres, DDS, MD, FACS, FACCS
“Every person that you meet knows something you don’t; learn from them.” Author, H. Jackson Brown Jr.
This quote sums up why it is such an honor to be part of the East Texas community—because it is through all those people I have encountered that I have been able to grow personally and professionally and now am afforded a chance to reinvest back. The possibility of serving our specialty in this capacity is not only a humbling honor, but a tremendous opportunity to represent our specialty and my peers outside of the operating room and clinical settings.
My educational journey has spanned many years and locations throughout the country. Degrees from the University of Michigan, Columbia University and the University of Texas are proudly displayed on my office walls. In 2005, I completed a fully accredited six-year Oral and Maxillofacial Surgical program and moved to Tyler to start working in private practice where I joined Drs. James Holton and Makoto Saigusa to open a state-of-the-art facility that would include one of the only accredited maxillofacial ambulatory surgical centers in the country.
Over the last twenty years, a life in private practice has afforded me the opportunity to provide comprehensive patient care involving a true, full-scope practice of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery including trauma, major reconstruction, full facial cosmetics, pathology and dentoalveolar. Today, my practice, Tyler Oral and Facial Surgery Center is a leading provider in East Texas, where I also have served as a surgical director for Christus Trinity Mother Frances Hospital; a level-two trauma center; and the University of Texas Health Science Center of East Texas, a major level-one trauma center servicing over 3 million people. Because educating others in our specialty is tantamount to its progress and my personal calling, in 2017, I established an ADA/AMA certified learning center through our doors with live surgery and full interaction. I’ve also had the distinct honor in serving as the United States Army OMFS Resident Trauma Program Director, where leadership, education and collaboration are helping to ensure our specialty persists even outside of the civilian realm.
Being in private practice has also made it possible for me to advance our specialty by refining techniques in the OR through the creation of multiple innovative medical device patents to aid in procedural approaches and quicker patient recovery. Furthermore, I have had the distinct honor of authoring several trauma and cosmetic textbook chapters, articles as well as giving national lectures in these various areas throughout my career.
I have found great satisfaction shaping future OMS minds in various capacities by serving the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Examination Committee for seven years, as Section Two National Co-Chairman for three years, and as a content expert for the cosmetic surgical section. Because my view of our specialty has been seen through a unique hybrid lens, as a private practitioner and as an administrator in a teaching capacity it has afforded me the ability to ensure our patients receive the most cutting-edge approaches with optimal results.
Beyond the operating room, I value my time with my wife Veronica and son Jayden. They, and God are the most important people behind my driving for success- everything I do is for them! My philosophy is that a successful family man and surgeon must have a sense of humility and understanding that it takes an exorbitant amount of hard work, dedication, responsibility and empathy. The world is our stage and God is our DJ. We are all blessed. JT
Read Video Transcript: About Dr. Terres
If you had to summarize this journey in one sentence, what would you say? Blessed. I'm truly passionate about my work and I truly care about my patients. And I find that I'm more **** about their outcomes and most of the time than they are. And a lot of times, I always want to go above and beyond for them. And they may say, no, it's enough, it's enough. And I said it's not enough. We have to make it perfect. I'm a professionist, I'm an engineer by trade that went back and got a degree in neurobiology and then went off to medical school, dental school and then did six years as head and neck surgery stuff. So I wanted to know all aspects on how to fix a face and how to make everything perfect. My staff's very important to me and they know me as as well as my family knows me and I know them as well as their family knows them and we work as a team for everything. There's no hierarchy in my group. We're all a family. It's more important to me that my patients come in and say your staff is just wonderful to me. That's one of the things I take great pride in and it's most important to me. The highlight of my day is seeing such diversity to all my patients on who comes in and what they need to have done. Wisdom teeth implants to corrective jaw surgery, back to a biopsy, back to a fracture or trauma, and then concluding. And the highlight of my day is being able to say that I took care of everyone and I didn't have any issues and I was not stumped for that day. That's the highlight.