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 Growing up in Winston-Salem, NC, young Jeff Davis stretched canvas in exchange for professional art lessons.
He stretched, learned and painted for more than seven years until it was time for college, then he faced a dilemma. Should he paint a swath as an artist or, like his father before him, pursue a career in medicine?
Torn, he chose both.
Dr. Davis wove his love for oils, watercolors and medicine into a plastic surgeon whose patients are his canvases; his artwork, happy, transformed people.
 “There are many parallels between art and plastic surgery,” Dr. Davis said. “Water colors don’t lend themselves to mistakes. Once you commit with a brush you can’t take it back. Once an incision is made you can’t take that back either.”
Dr. Davis spent nearly two decades in formal education and training, graduating with a B.S. from Wake Forest before earning his D.D.S. at the University of North Carolina and his M.D. from Duke University.
He spent six years as an assistant professor at UNC, teaching plastic, cosmetic, oculoplastic surgery and dentistry before going into practice in Albany in 1994.
“My family and I chose Albany because my grandfather’s roots are in Adel (60 miles to the southeast,) ’’ Dr. Davis recalled. “We were attracted to the area because of the beauty, the wildlife and the people. These are our kind of folks.”
Dr. Davis still paints, earning occasional commissions for his crow quill and classic watercolors - skills that serve him well in the operating room.
“I think an artist’s eye sees the difference in subtleties of line, shape, shade and contour,” Dr. Davis said. “My work, like art, is refined and meticulously detailed. I love it.”
So do his patients.
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