RLI Taking the Lead Podcasts

Did You Know?

Dr. Schoppe is married to his wife, Candace Schoppe, who is a forensic pathologist. She attended UT Houston for medical school while Dr. Schoppe was at Baylor—they’re across the street from each other in the TX Medical Center in Houston. Together, they have two children, Lila who is 8 and Elinor who will be 5 soon, and four cats named Houston, Ibn, Mora and Roka. The last three are named after famous anatomists and physicians.

Outside of work, Dr. Schoppe enjoys mountain biking, cyclocross and golf though he currently has less time for these activities. He enjoys fitness in general and works out in his garage gym—his sanctuary and head clearing space—usually between 4 and 6am. Dr. Schoppe and his wife also enjoy traveling and visited New Zealand pre-pandemic.

Radiology was a serendipitous discovery for Dr. Schoppe. He took it as an elective in medical school when he had a month between medicine and surgery rotations. Then, when he was considering Gastroenterology and urology, he managed to sort out that he could do both and much shorter procedures in Radiology/IR; so Dr. Schoppe ended up doing a body fellowship where he did all the CT/US procedures. Before medicine, Dr. Schoppe considered finance. He did an internship with a private equity firm and actually had a job offer to work in New York City after graduation however, the offer was rescinded because of fallout from the 2001/2002 dot com crash. He stayed a year longer and did research with his thesis advisor (behavior finance, Daniel Kahneman) and applied for medical school.

When it comes to food, Dr. Schoppe likes all types of food. One of his favorite things to do is go to a really nice restaurant and have the chef’s menu or tasting flight. It’s even better if it’s one of those restaurants where you sit-down and they serve what they want. He’d rather spend money on a really good dining experience then go on most vacations.

When it comes to drinks, Dr. Schoppe’s palette changes with time and different exposures. He used to love red wine. Now he doesn’t drink it much. He spent several years exploring beer and even went to Belgium with his wife and toured small breweries. Now, Dr. Schoppe drinks mostly white wine and his personal preference is a NZ Sauvignon Blanc (Framingham, Nautilus, or Cloudy Bay are his favorites). For a pre-dinner cocktail, he enjoys a gin gimlet, up, extra lime (Botanist is his favorite gin at the moment). His wife loves Scotch, likely because she studied in Scotland for a while, and he’s learned about it but still considers himself a novice there.