Katy man on track with career

It was quite the scene recently at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston as 240 medical school students were called up to the podium one by one, where they were each handed an envelope.

At the word "go," students tore into the envelopes, including 26-year-old Katy native Camden Tissue.

It was Match Day, a day when medical school students across the nation wait with bated breath to find out where they will do their residencies.

"It was nerve-wracking waiting to find out where Camden would be matched," said his wife of 18 months, Amy Tissue. "Our goal was to stay in Texas, preferably Houston."

Camden found out he's indeed been matched with his No. 1 choice, UT Health, the place he's spent the last four years as a student and class president, and now the place where he will begin an orthopedic surgery residency.

Medical school students doing residencies in Texas totaled 98, of which 47 will be at UT Health.

"I wanted to be in Houston, because it's home, and because Houston has the best medical center in the world," Camden said. "This is the place to be when you're learning medicine."

Medical school has been grueling, Camden said, but by the end of May, it will have paid off as Camden will then officially be "Dr. Tissue."

"Those two little letters, 'M.D.', represent a lot of school hours, events I've missed, vacations I couldn't go on, parties I couldn't go to," Camden said.

But he's not done yet.

Camden's residency will last five years. After that, if he wants to further specialize in his chosen field, say in sports medicine, he'll have an additional year of training.

"The chairman of our department acts as physician for the Rockets," Camden said. "That would be my dream job."

Camden, a 2003 graduate of Cinco Ranch High School, became interested in health care at an early age, because his mother Bridget Tissue is a dentist.

Tissue had Camden in her last year of dental school, and kept him close by when she first went into practice.

"I remember putting him in his walker, and he'd be going up and down the hallways," Tissue said. "I had a sitter in the practice, so he stayed with me all the time. When he was in high school he worked in the office in the summers."

Camden was considering following in his mother's footsteps.

"But eventually I found out I had more fun working with bones than teeth," he said.

Part of the reason is because Camden, who was a high school football player, had two knee injuries that required surgery.

"Orthopedics is kind of like construction," Camden said. "Broken bones, torn tendons, you go in there and put it back together again."

He has his mother's full blessing.

"One day we got to talking and I said "Cam, if you could be anything you want to be, what would it be?" Tissue said. "He said a (sports) team doctor. I told him to go for it, to follow his dream. Ever since that conversation, he's never looked back, and I couldn't be happier for him, or more proud of him."