Trained at Mayo Clinic. Here's What That Taught Us About Concierge Post-Op Recovery Care.
Before The Recovery Practice existed, we were just two nurses on the concierge medicine team at Mayo Clinic, watching patients navigate recovery in a way most people never get to experience.
We're Kendall Dorr and Katy Schuerkamp — the founders of TRP. And if you're trying to decide who to trust with your recovery after surgery, we think you deserve to know exactly where we came from and why it shapes everything we do.
What Concierge Medicine Actually Looks Like
Concierge medicine isn't just "nicer" healthcare. It's a fundamentally different model — one built around time, attention, and continuity that traditional post-op care structures simply don't allow for.
In our experience, we saw what happens when a patient's care team has the bandwidth to actually watch, notice, and respond — instead of rushing through a checklist. We saw how much faster people healed, physically and emotionally, when someone was paying close attention. We saw what it looked like when nothing was overlooked because someone had the time to look.
That standard got into our bones. And when we left to start something of our own, we weren't willing to build anything less rigorous.
Why We Started The Recovery Practice
Plastic surgery and orthopedic patients are sent home from procedures that are more complex than ever, often with instructions, drains, dressings, and pain management plans to manage almost entirely on their own. The gap between "you're discharged" and "you're actually recovering well" is enormous — and it's a gap most people are left to close by themselves.
We started TRP because we kept thinking: what if someone brought the concierge model home with them?
That's the whole premise. RN-only care. No handoffs to unlicensed aides. No IV add-ons dressed up as recovery care. Just experienced nurses, in your home, doing the kind of close, attentive clinical work we were trained to deliver at one of the most respected medical institutions in the country.
We intentionally keep our company model lean to stay true to that mission of personalized care. The nurse you meet and speak with before your surgery is the same nurse who will be present for your recovery.
What Our Mayo Clinic Training Actually Changed About How We Practice
A few specific things carried over directly into how TRP operates:
We don't rush assessments. Concierge medicine taught us that most complications get missed in the gaps — the five minutes nobody had time for. Every TRP visit is built around real observation, not a quick check-in.
We think in terms of the whole patient, not just the incision. Pain, mobility, nutrition, sleep, anxiety — recovery is never just the surgical site. That whole-person lens is a habit we picked up long before we started this company.
We hold a high bar for who provides care. This is part of why TRP is RN-only. It's not a cost-saving compromise or a scope-of-practice workaround — it's a direct reflection of the standard we were trained to.
We believe good care requires restraint, not just services. One of our clearest decisions at TRP was choosing not to offer IV therapy after surgery, even though it's an easy upsell for a lot of competitors. That decision came directly from clinical training that taught us to ask "does this actually help this patient long-term" before "can we offer this." It doesn't mean those who offer it are wrong — it's just a decision that didn't feel right for us. We can easily coordinate this if it's something your surgeon wants as part of your home care, but it's not a decision we make without the team.
Why This Matters If You're Choosing Recovery Care
There's a lot of noise in the post-surgical recovery space right now — companies offering hydration drips, wellness add-ons, and vague promises of "concierge" care without much behind the name.
We'd just encourage you to ask questions. Who is actually coming to your home? What is their clinical background? What's their training, and where did it come from?
For us, the answer is Mayo Clinic. And it's the reason The Recovery Practice looks the way it does today.
Kendall Dorr, RN, OCN, and Katy Schuerkamp, RN, MSN, are the co-founders of The Recovery Practice, a concierge post-operative nursing service based in Scottsdale, Arizona, serving plastic surgery and orthopedic patients throughout the Phoenix metro area.
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