Dr. Karen Horton and the San Francisco Plastic Surgery team in Healdsburg at Willi’s

My office and operating room team is AMAZING.  They deserve to be honored and pampered, and this is exactly what we did!  I hosted the second annual San Francisco Plastic Surgery (SFPS) team-building retreat recently in Healdsburg, California.

As a sequel to last year’s first-ever weekend retreat at the Sonoma Mission Inn that featured swag bags, personality assessment exercises, spa treatments, wine tasting, fabulous meals and other fun activities, this year I hosted thirteen ladies at Hotel Healdsburg for two nights on a weekend in early May.  I was completely over the moon about how last year’s retreat turned out, so it has become an annual celebration!

Dr. Horton normally does Pure Barre workouts at 6 a.m. in Marin on weekdays.  Before our retreat, several office members joined in!

Our weekend started off with a Pure Barre Mill Valley class.  Several of us lifted-toned-and-burned at my favorite fitness studio before traveling to wine country for the weekend, which was forecast to be cool and rainy.  After our barre class, we stopped at Club Horton in Marin to make gourmet avocado toast, clink glasses filled with Veuve and soak our tired muscles in the hot tub before heading to Healdsburg.

Gordy Horton supervised our breakfast and waited patiently for leftovers 😉

Next, we dropped our bags at the hotel and enjoyed a pre-game lunch at Bravas Bar de Tapas in downtown Healdsburg, a beautiful Northern California wine country destination.  We braved a torrential downpour on the two-block walk to the restaurant and arrived absolutely drenched complete with soaking wet shoes, but made quick work of the delicious tapas and cocktails!

Bravas is known for its incredible made-to-order paella!

We are like chosen family 🙂

Our group included the entire SFPS team and two of our amazing CPMC Board-Certified Anesthesiologists who took time out of their busy hospital call schedule to join us!  We are so grateful to them and honored to offer our patients the highest-level Anesthesia care in our fully certified operating room, right in our office!

Dr. Carolyn Dejean and Dr. Jennifer Brown are two of our Board Certified Anesthesiologists who provide general anesthesia for surgical patients at the San Francisco Plastic Surgery Center

Upon Hotel Healdsburg check-in, all attendees opened a lovingly curated gift bag – one of my favorite parts of preparing for this retreat.  Each swag bag  included an oversized retro Healdsburg tote, a custom-made tank top with our fun unofficial slogan (see below), favorite color SFPS baseball cap, custom-ordered ordered FIGS scrubs and compression socks, a rose gold wine tumbler (to match our beautiful new office), pink champagne, Healdsburg wine stopper, personalized candle and a recently published book on the history of Plastic Surgery, “From Trenches to Transplants”.

The 2023 San Francisco Plastic Surgery retreat swag bag – gift-giving and treating others is indeed my LOVE LANGUAGE!

Plastic Surgery involves so much more than Botox and “BBLs” (which I do not do)…  I encourage everyone to learn about the history of Plastic Surgery, which began before Christ,  blossomed in wartime and gave birth to the very first organ transplantation procedure – a kidney transplanted by a Plastic Surgeon, Dr. Joseph Murray.

Our welcome dinner allowed us to celebrate our Anesthesia Director, Dr. Caroline Dejean, with a surprise birthday cake and festivities.

During dinner, Nurse Emily led a fun icebreaker exercise, and had a blast in our sound-proof wine room!

YES, we might have had a welcome cocktail upon check-in in our bathrobes…

The next morning, each guest was treated to a massage or facial at the Hotel Healdsburg SPA.  We work in the service industry ourselves, taking care of our patients, ensuring safety and the highest-level care and results in our boutique Pacific Heights office.   It was only appropriate that my office team got treated themselves.  They are SO worth it!

Next, we assembled for a group photo with our SFPS new tanks, professing “OMG we’re so profesh”!  Thanks to a long-term patient who returned for a procedure (our third patient done under general anesthesia) in our newly QuadA-certified O.R. last year, who pronounced, upon getting her official I.D. wrist band and seeing our shiny new digs, “OMG you’re so PROFESH!” – and, it stuck.

Each team member chose their favorite hat color, complete with glittery gold letters (even our one-of-a-kind invaluable Anesthesia Technician Jorge) – who was gifted a beige cap when we saw him checking our Anesthesia cart for the next day after our retreat – ladies only for our weekend events.

We had a fabulous lunch at Willi’s Seafood & Raw Bar, followed by Pinot Noir tasting at Siduri (some team members may have needed a nap).  Note who is missing…

We did some shopping around town, then celebrated with a mystery 5-course dinner at Valette (a unique experience – we were kept in suspense about what we were eating, even as it arrived) followed by more revelry in Mary’s and my suite before beauty sleep…

Dr. Horton is not a quitter.

We ended our weekend adventure with a private brunch complete with breakfast cocktails, a fantastic incredible buffet and tons of positive feedback about our weekend and laughs about our time together.

I am grateful to my team, and for the time they chose to spend away from their families, pets and friends to spend time with me and each on this special weekend!

I am thrilled with this year’s retreat and have already started planning for next year… (think Calistoga, mud baths and more…)