Hey, my name is Bill Stetson. I'm an ANNA member and part of the technology committee. And as part of our oral history project for ANNA, I have the, just the pleasure of talking to a long time ANNA member and very dear and good friend, Denny Stanfield. Denny and I have known each other for many, many years and spent a lot of time together going to meetings and doing labs together. And so, when I saw his name on the list of people to interview, I signed up right away because I just wanted to keep in touch with Denny and just, and it's just really an honor for you to take your time out of your busy day, Denny, to be with us today. My pleasure. My pleasure, Bill. So, you know, as we talked about Denny, you know, there's lots of different questions, but this could be free flowing. It can go to any direction that we want. Sure. Let's kind of start at the beginning and you know, with the questions we've asked everybody and then we'll kind of go from there. The first one is really, what is your favorite aspect of being an ANNA member, having been an ANNA member? I think probably my favorite part of being an ANNA member is just the camaraderie that develops over actually a relatively short period of time and then it just expands over years and years. And, you know, I've developed great friendships with other ANNA members and even their families, you know, so you, as you, as you become a member and get more and more involved, then you, then you start to see, you know, your fellow members on a regular basis and it's, you know, and then you meet their spouses and their children and, you know, you actually look forward to the next ANNA opportunity to get to see them again and talk to them in person. I mean, you know, as you, as you expand your relationship with ANNA and become committee members and committee chairs and that kind of thing, it just, it just deepens that relationship. And, and it's, you know, it's, it's, it's very fond part of my, my ANNA membership. You know, Denny, I would have to agree with you. And it seemed to be a recurrent theme of everybody that I talked to about ANNA, besides the education and everything else that goes with it, it's all about those relationships and those relationships, you know, last years and years. It is, it's, you know, it's, it becomes a part of your career and it becomes a very heartwarming part of your career. And as you said, you know, there's, there's, you know, the benefits of just having friends, but, but the, the friends that you, that you, the friendships that you make, you know, are with people who, who share your career. You know, you know, something that I was told a long time ago was, you know, expand yourself outside of your area code, you know, in your career. So, so that's a part of it. You know, you can, you know, you can build your relationships at home with, with, with your partners and with, you know, other orthopedic surgeons that say in your city, but really expanding it nationwide or even internationally makes a huge difference in your career. And it, and it, it certainly affects how you take care of patients and how you see your patients in the office every day. But it's, it's, it was a huge part and still is a huge part of my, my career. Yeah. Interesting. You say that I would agree the same thing, both, both here in the U S and also obviously to Canada and Mexico, and even in other countries, all those relationships that we, that we develop. And I would look forward to every single Anna meeting because I agree, meet old friends, catch up and then meet new friends. You know, and as a young orthopedic surgeon, you know, I would, I would go to Anna meetings and, you know, and just be in all, almost of the speakers and the, and the senior members of Anna who, you know, are known internationally. And I don't know about you, Bill, but I would, I would look at, at the agenda of a meeting and, and see who the speakers were. And I would, I would go to a meeting specifically to listen to those specific people. If I knew they were going to be speaking, I mean, even if it was a course, you know, many, Anna has many courses and that, you know, that may, may appeal to certain people. Certain courses appeal to certain people based on what their, you know, what their career is and what their specialty in arthroscopy may be. But for me, it was, it was, I was a shoulder knee person or I am a shoulder knee person. So, so I would look specifically at the, you know, at the lineup, let's say, and who's going to be teaching that and, and who's going to be speaking and what can I learn from them? And I know that I, you know, my practice is very similar to what that person's might be. So I would, I would, I would seek them out, let's say. You know, I, I would do the exact same thing when I was first starting. I would look at, look at the meeting and who was speaking and I would make a point to go listen to their lectures because I felt like there were so many pearls there that you wouldn't get in a textbook or even from, you know, from your, from your training as a resident. Yeah, if we're talking about history, you know, Dick Casperi was the person that I was, that I would always try to get to if, if I knew that he was going to be a, you know, headlining a meeting or something, you know, Dr. Casperi would, was always entertaining and, but, but just had so much knowledge and was so innovative and creative. And it was just a pleasure to be at a meeting when he was speaking. Yeah, I would agree. He was one of the first ones that I went to go speak with. I actually had the opportunity to meet him. I remember at the end of my training and early in my career, you know, not, you know, right, right. Unfortunately, right before he passed away, suddenly, I felt like I was, I was like, I was in the presence of, of some, almost like a God. And he treated me, he treated me like a regular guy, you know, like, you know, a colleague. And I was, I was, I always remember that. I think we always do remember those people that we look up to, but they were just regular people. And those that treated you well. Yeah, it was good, you know, sharing, you know, we all share the same passion, I think. And that was the great thing that we all would love to learn. And, you know, interestingly, not only the courses, but also, you know, the courses like for the, you know, the big ANA meetings, but I also enjoyed what you, the Learning Center courses, I thought those were just really something. Oh, absolutely. You know, the, you know, and then early in our career, you know, the Learning Center was in its infancy as well. You know, so the, you know, the former site and which wasn't as large as the current Learning Center, and at first did not have a hotel. And, you know, we would, we'd stay down the street, you know, I'm sure you remember it, and have to ride the bus down to the Learning Center. And, but it was, you know, it was, it was just as good, even though it was small and, and not quite as fancy as the newer one. It was a great place to go. And, you know, the Learning Center is a huge advantage for, for ANA, from, from my standpoint, you know, I love teaching there, you know, I became interested in, in going to courses very early in my career, it just seemed like that was a good way for me to learn. It kind of fit my, my learning model, let's say. So, I would go as a student, you know, just sign up, pay your money and go. I remember I went to a hip course, which I don't do hip arthroscopy, but I just thought that I need to learn a little bit about it. And, you know, so I went to a hip course, which was a little bit different for me, but a lot of shoulder and knee courses thrown in there to, to just, you know, there's no better way to learn than to be around people who are, who are practicing exactly what you do, have, have practices at home that are very similar to what you have, and, and to be almost one-on-one with those people and spend a weekend or whatever, however many days it would be. It was, those were great, great opportunities for me. And then, and then if you were, you know, I would, I may be getting ahead of myself, but, you know, if you're somebody who's interested in whether you should join ANA or not, or maybe you're an ANA member, but you're not very much involved, how can I get more involved? The OLC courses is the way to go. I mean, you, you go there and if you, you know, if you, if you appear to be interested and, and, you know, have some skill, then, you know, someone's going to tap you on the shoulder and say, Hey, maybe next time you ought to think about becoming an instructor, you know, and then, and then you become a junior instructor. And then, you know, as a junior instructor, you're really not required to do much more than, you know, show a, so show a participant a few of your tricks that you learned from someone else, you know, they're probably not original. Most of us don't have very many original thoughts, to be honest with you. So, so you do that and then you get a little bit better at it. And then they may ask you to actually, maybe, maybe you could do a demo on something, you know, and then you do a demo. Wow, that's a, that's a huge deal. And then maybe you could speak at an OLC course and give a little lecture on, you know, something and it just continues to grow, you know, and you do that and then, then somebody's going to want you to maybe be on a committee. And, you know, my, my first committee was, was bylaws, you know, now for those of us who've been in Anna for a while, bylaws doesn't really do a whole lot, you know, but it's a committee, you know, I even, I even got promoted to be bylaws chair, you know, still doesn't do much, but, but you're a chair, you know, you're a chair of a committee. So it was pretty cool. And then it just goes on from there. Yeah. You know, I think that's, that is such good advice. I think, you know, as what my next question was going to be, you know, what advice would you give to a younger member of Anna? And I think you just, you hit the nail on the head right there. I mean, everything. Yeah, I think, you know, if I were to do it all over again, I would just do it quicker. You know what I mean? I would, I would probably, and maybe even be a tiny bit more aggressive. You really don't have to be very aggressive, but, but, you know, just, just, just ask to be involved. You know, in my early years, I was pretty shy, I would say, and just kind of waited for someone to recognize me and, and, and ask me to, to participate in some, some way. I might, if I had to do it over again, I would probably maybe ask to be involved more because it's just, it's, it's just such a great organization. And it, and you can just learn so much from your colleagues. If you, if you're involved and it helps your practice, it just, you know, and, and what you learn is not necessarily all about arthroscopic techniques. You know, it can be about how to run your practice or how do you manage your office or, you know, how do you build this? And, you know, there's just so many parts of your practice that don't necessarily involve your surgical skill, but you can learn those from little tricks and the trade from other ANA members. And all you have to do is just kind of be around them and you kind of get it by osmosis. That's really true. I just enjoy all the courses and the meetings and I'd get the opportunity to sit down and have a drink or a meal with, you know, somebody, you know, Steve Burkhardt or, or Jim Escher or somebody. And it was, and they would come up with some of the darndest things. And I would say, I never thought of that, you know, and, and they were just such forward thinkers. I think we were all lucky to just to kind of be part of it and be around them. I agree. Yeah. So Denny, the next question I have and that's great advice about, you know, younger members being involved in all these different, you know, the LLC and going to the courses. Next question I have for you, what do you think is the most impactful innovation to orthopedics that you've seen, you know, during your career? Well, as an arthroscopist, I think there's, there's probably two, you know, I'm, I'm a little older now. So very, very early was actually the arthroscope, you know, I think we've, there was always an arthroscope, even when I was a resident, but not always a camera. So extremely early, there were people who, who had a scope, but no camera. So they're looking into the, to the scope with their, their actual eye. You know, if you're, if you're an intern on ortho, then you see nothing because you're never going to get your eye down to the scope. You're just way too far down the chain of command for that. But, you know, I think, so arthroscope obviously is, is a big deal. You know, it was, it was the biggest innovation early in my career and it had, you know, it, it didn't have a whole lot of respect to be honest with you. I'm sure you remember Bill, there was a lot of question about whether that thing is ever going to be useful, you know, seems kind of crazy. Why don't you just make an incision and you can just see what you're doing, but we all know, you know, now how useful it is and what you can get accomplished. But, you know, the second one is probably suture anchor. You know, suture anchor was key. We were speaking earlier about Dr. Casperi, you know, and Dr. Casperi's treatment for labral tears, you know, was the, was to put all those sutures in the labrum and then feed them all through the eye of a needle and, and, and then pass that, that huge needle through, through the glenoid and out the back. And then time I was soft tissue in the back, you know, that was a, that was great innovation, but the, the suture anchor really was the key, you know, and there were multiple versions of it and tax and big headed tax and all that kind of thing. But, but the suture anchor was really, was I think key. You know, I have to agree though. Those were two, you know, I remember when arthroscopy, I mean, knee arthroscopy was present, but nobody sticking an arthroscope in a shoulder. I mean, just to be happy to get it inside the shoulder. Right. And then, and then Steve Snyder has said, well, do you know what you're looking at? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Diagnostic exam. Oh, sure. And, and, you know, we, even when you saw something, you didn't know what it was and you didn't know if it was pathology or not, you know, is that normal or is that not normal? You know, the old Buford complex deal and you know, how many people repaired those and that kind of thing. So it was, there was just so much that happened, but there's, you know, we talk about the history, but you know, that's still going on today. I mean, I mean, there are things that are identified and, you know, you're, we're getting into other joints that probably we were not in before, or even, you know, tissue spaces that aren't even a joint, you know, like a hamstring repair or something like that. I mean, it's, it's all pretty cool. And that's all the arthroscope. Yeah. Yeah. It is pretty amazing. Those two, those two developments I would have to agree with you are really revolutionized the ability to not only to look in there, but also to do something. Yeah. Do something that's effective. Right. Yeah. Really something. So Danny, next question. You know, I, I think we've touched a little bit on this, but you know, your favorite memories about your involvement with Anna, I know you mentioned the learning center and the courses, any other thoughts about any other favorite memories? Oh, yeah. You know, my, you know, my favorite memory of Anna is, was being the fellowship chairman. You know, so I was the fellowship committee chairman for six straight years. And, and that was, you know, probably the greatest part of my Anna career, you know, that involves traveling fellowship. So every year would be, you know, choosing the traveling fellows, identifying places for them to go. Usually we had three sites, you know, talking to various, by that point, colleagues around the country. And even, we even went to Mexico one year. So around the country, North America, identifying, you know, could they come up with, you know, something for the fellows to do for three days, let's say at their, at their location. And would they be willing to put together a program for them and, you know, not only an educational program, but a social program and, you know, where could they stay? And, you know, there were just so many parts of that, that were, and you get to meet and talk with so many people. I mean, you know, if I look back on people who were traveling fellows, those are people who are very prominent in arthroscopy today. People who were traveling fellows when I was a fellowship chair, you know, and then, and then the other part of that is that there's the, you know, the fellowship day at the annual meeting. So not only do you do traveling fellows, but you get to, you get to come up with a curriculum for, for the fellowship day or the fellows day at the, at the annual meeting. So that was, that was just really good for me. You know, it, it, it, I felt like I was doing something important and it, and it, and it was, you know, an honor for me to be able to do that. And then I, I just met so many more people and the, you know, picking, you got to pick a godfather, you know, and the godfathers are always pretty cool, pretty cool members of ANA, you know, and you get to know them well because you're talking with them about getting all that arranged and everything. It was just a great time for me. Great time. Yeah, I would have to say that, that, that is the traveling fellowship and the fellows. I feel it's a wonderful program and it's obviously made a huge difference in the, I think in the development of, of, of young ANA members, you know. It does. It is, you know, you know, I'm thinking of, there's just so many. I don't want to name any names because I'll leave somebody out, but, you know, a lot of people on the board, even now, were traveling fellows. Yeah. It just, if you're interested and you're young and you want to be a traveling fellow, then that's a great way to kind of make this huge leap into ANA, you know, if you can, if you could be selected as a traveling fellow and be willing to take two weeks at a time, usually out of a practice to do that, you know, and you have to be committed to do it. But it was, it was great for me. Obviously it is a big commitment, but definitely well worth it. And I think that's really good advice to the younger members about another thing to be involved with. I agree. Yeah. So Danny, next question for you. What's the best piece of career advice that you think anyone has ever given you? Well, I think, you know, I may, I mentioned it earlier, probably the best piece of career advice is not to stay in your home arena, but get outside of it. You know, I, not to be critical, and I'm not really trying to be critical of people, but, you know, I'm, I practice in a big city. And at one point I had like 40 partners, you know, and some of those partners just kind of stay at home. And, you know, again, trying to not be critical. They may be practicing the same medicine today that they practiced 15 years ago. Not that that's bad. They're doing good surgery and they're, they're not harming anybody. But for me, the excitement was getting away from home, listening to people who are, who are on the cutting edge of what's going on. And, and some of those, you know, some of those ideas, as you know, Bill failed, you know, we listened to some things that, that, you know, maybe we even kind of bought into, you know, for a little bit, but then they didn't work out. But those are the kind of, you know, you have to kind of be willing to take a little bit of risk and say, okay, I'm gonna try this and see how well it works. You know, I heard this person talking about it and it seemed like a great idea. Let me see how it goes. You know, and that brings excitement to your own practice, you know, and you can do your own little clinical study, you know, and maybe you do on, you know, whether this is working or not working and get involved, maybe develop a relationship with a company and all those kinds of things help you. You know, but you can't, it's hard to do that if you just stay at home. You know, so being involved in, you know, Anna is certainly, you know, the way that it worked for me was my main relationship was with Anna. I always loved going to the Academy meetings and I loved going to other types of meetings, sports meetings, those kinds of things, but Anna was my home base. You know, that's where I was a strong member and wanted to be a member and develop most of my relationships. It felt like all those Anna, you know, those, when we started our careers, I was going to those Anna meetings, everybody was so welcoming. Which we didn't always see in other organizations. You know, it didn't matter who you were working for. There aren't as many, you know, Anna was very closely affiliated with the Metcalf meetings. You know, those were great meetings. There aren't many independent meetings. There were probably a few more in the earlier years, but, you know, Anna's kind of taken the place of those. So, I think Anna's the place to be. Yeah. So, you know, we've got a few, some other questions here. We could probably talk all day, but I think this is a good one. You know, and I, for me personally, I could think of probably four or five people, but for you, who was probably one of your most influential mentors and what do you think you, what did you learn from them? Well, I would say from a national standpoint, you know, Steve Burkhart was my main mentor. Like we said earlier, you know, I had a tendency to attend Burkhart OLC courses as a student, you know, as a participant. And then I did get recognized by Steve and Steve was like, you know, you ought to be on the faculty so next time when we have a course, I want you to be on the faculty. And so I was, you know, and then, you know, I remember Steve, one time it was, this was a relatively new procedure. It was when they used the, it was an AC joint reconstruction using the tight rope or that shuttle button and graft with it. And I guess I might tend to notice this graft with it. And he kind of wanted to show that. And he was, you know, he came to me and he goes, hey, have you ever done that? And I said, yeah, I've done that a few times. He goes, do you think you could do a demo this afternoon? I go, wow, yeah, sure, you know? And so we did it, you know, and it went well. And, you know, then he was kind of like, well, you need to do demos, you know, at all the courses. So that, you know, that just kind of, and, you know, he invited me to, you know, San Antonio to see him. And so I went down to San Antonio for a few days and, you know, that just really helped me a tremendous amount. And he was so kind. So Steve was a big mentor of mine. I was not a fellow of his, but it just, I kind of felt like I was. And then, you know, prior to that, it was Casperi because I knew a couple of people that I was residents with a few years above me and a few years below me all became Casperi fellows. So we were, we kind of had this relationship with Dick Casperi and I, you know, I had a Casperi leg holder and I had a Casperi, you know, the whole, you know, shoulder set and all that kind of thing and used all those tools. So that was good for me, yeah. But Steve Burkhart was probably the biggest mentor arthroscopically for me. I think there's a lot of people who would say the same thing that just- I agree. I'm not, I'm certainly like a small little, little fleck in Steve Burkhart's career. So he did that to so many people or for so many people, you know, just a great guy. He is so generous with all his thoughts and everything, you know, and it just- Oh yeah, and very, very humble, you know, just, you know, the guy is brilliant. You know, the Steve, the three amigos, you know, the three amigos were just amazing. Dr. Ash, Dr. Schneider, Dr. Burkhart, you know, just tremendous. Yeah. You know, they were gonna have a, in December they had planned something and I had signed up for the three amigos. It was like a couple of days, I think that they were going to all get together. I was looking forward to that so, so much. Unfortunately it got canceled, but I just thought, what a great opportunity to just hang out with those guys. Oh man, yeah, it would, it would be great, you know, just to go to dinner with them again or something, yeah. I don't know if you've ever seen, there's a, I get in some of my talks, I, you know, Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, he put a picture of him up against, against Jim Ash. They look like brothers. So I called Jim the Sage of San Diego. That's great, that's great. He always comes up, he's, I spend so much time with him at the learning center and other places. So many words of wisdom there, you know, so many things like, you know, it's- I agree. It's still arthroscopic surgery if you don't connect the portals and he showed me a picture, he showed us a picture of like eight portals around a shoulder. It's still arthroscopy. Yeah, it's still arthroscopy, that's right. If you don't connect them. All right, so, so Danny, lots of things here, but how about any difficult cases or anything like that in the past that you think, you know, that you can think about that Anna, that being a Anna member has helped you with? Well, you know, I don't remember anything specifically, but I would say that, you know, again, it's Anna that, that helps you. And you, you know, you may get it from lectures at the annual meeting or, or something like that. But for me, it was, it was the labs. Even when we had the labs at like the fall meeting, when we used to have the fall meeting, we just had a lab. It was always challenging because it was kind of in a hotel and, you know, it was plastic on floors and all that kind of thing. Really not as good as going to the LLC, but, but close, you know, if he couldn't make it to the LLC, but, you know, I think that the thing that the labs teach you is, is how to get out of trouble. I mean, we all get in trouble, you know, something doesn't go right. You know, we, we were talking about suture anchors. Well, you know, they, they break and, you know, when they were metal and, you know, they would fray the suture and you, if you pull too hard, you know, you, you break the suture and now you've got a metal anchor in and no suture in it. You know, just all of those crazy things. But, but, you know, you learn just from being around people and being, doing cases in a lab that all of that happens. Here's, here's, here's how you fix that, or here's how you get, here's how you get out of that. Here's how you can rethread your, you know, your suture anchor or something, you know, all those kinds of things, you know, are probably not in a textbook, or I don't know that I've ever read it in a textbook, but, but you learn that at the lab or at the OLC, someone shows you and you're just like, oh my gosh, that's pretty simple. But anyway, you know, and I think that's the key to, you know, one of the keys to being a, to being a good surgeon or, you know, I don't know if I was ever a great surgeon, but a good surgeon is, is not to panic, number one, regardless of what happens, just kind of stay kind of cool and, you know, give your, give yourself a minute or something to think about how to get out of this little predicament that you're in, and then you, and then you do, you just kind of figure it out. And I think that, you know, that's what, that's what gives the people in the OR with you confidence in your ability. You know, I never was one to, to yell much or throw stuff or, you know, curse or that kind of thing in the OR. I just don't think that that's necessary. And I think, I don't think it helps you or certainly doesn't help the people that you're in the OR with your, your team. If you're going to be the team leader, then you got to be pretty calm and cool, regardless of what happens. And, you know, sometimes things don't go just right, but you just have to figure out how to get out of them. So, so I can't, I can't remember any specific terrible disaster, I'm sure there were many, but we somehow got out of the OR. I mean, I think that's, you know, that's the cool thing about being a surgeon too. You know, if you're, if you're a car mechanic and things aren't going well, you can just kind of throw down the wrench and say, I'll come back tomorrow. You know, cause this is not, I can't get this figured out. You can't do that as a surgeon. You don't get to come back tomorrow. You have to finish it today and you got to do it right now. So it, it, it takes a special personality, which I think we learned through Anna. Yeah. It, it really does. It's not like you can call a friend and somebody. Yeah, exactly. And he goes, hey, what do I do here? Although, wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't it? Yeah, it would be. And sometimes I'm looking in there, definitely early in my career, like, should I fix this? Yeah, oh, definitely. Yeah. And, you know, unfortunately I, you know, I probably fixed a few things that I shouldn't have and they got stiff afterwards. And I go, ah, that's probably why I shouldn't have fixed that sub-label for Amen. Yeah, that's the other thing. When you, when you've got that patient who either it's a stiff knee or it's a stiff shoulder or whatever. And then you're at a lecture like six weeks later or six months later and, and you hear somebody say, well, you know, I probably wouldn't put my suture there. That'll make it stiff. You go, oh, there's my problem. Yep, yep, yep. That we've all done that. I may have to change that. I may have to change that method. You know, that kind of thing. Oh, well. Oh, good one, good one. Hey, Denny, kind of going back to your, the beginning of your career, you know, why did you, why did you decide to pursue a career in orthopedic surgery? Can you wait, can you remember that? Oh, definitely. You know, my, you know, my career is a little bit entangled with a lot of other things, but I joined the Navy right out of high school. I enlisted in the Navy as a hospital corpsman. And, and that was, you know, primarily for financial reasons and, and wasn't definitely sure what I wanted to do. I was kind of interested in medicine, but, you know, I, I, I was primarily an athlete at that time and had very limited interest in academics. So that straightened me out a little bit. And, and I ended up, I ended up being a hospital corpsman with the Marine Corps and I was working at Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia, which is mainly like a big bootcamp. And the doc for that was an orthopedic surgeon. You know, so I'm working under an orthopedic surgeon who quite frankly, didn't want to be there. You know, he was, he was serving some time that he had postponed and postponed and postponed from the Vietnam draft. He was very well trained and had been pushing off this commitment the whole time. So he, he did not like being there, but, but he was good to me. And I love what he did. And most of what he did was sports related because it was, you know, injuries from the obstacle course or whatever it may be. And he kind of took me under his wing and said, you know, you ought to, you ought to go back to school and, you know, you ought to be an orthopedist. And I thought, ooh, that would be cool. I would love that. So I went, I actually went to college and medical school with the intention of being an orthopedic surgeon. I did not decide, you know, along the way. That was a, that was a straight shot. And fortunately it worked out. I did have one time when I missed a reading on an ankle fracture, I had an attending who said, you keep that up and you're going to be a psychiatrist. He was just kind of joking with me. I've not forgotten that. We've all missed things in our career, right? Like, oh, I didn't get that, right? Yeah, I didn't, I didn't quite see that break, but anyway. Yeah, we've all, we've all done that. Well, that's good. We've all had people in our career, you know, like people like that have influenced us, you know, and hopefully we can have them. He was very good to me, you know, and, you know, I've always told residents and fellows that I'm convinced that being an orthopedic surgeon, greatest job in the world, greatest job in the world. There's nothing else I'd rather do, absolutely nothing. Yeah, I would agree with you. And I think most of us feel the same way that it's such an honor and a privilege to do what we do. It definitely is, you know, and, you know, not to get too off track, I'm always humbled by how much patients trust us. You know, probably, you know, a large percentage of patients who see us, you know, they don't really know us that well. They don't, they don't really, they don't look up where you went to school. They don't look up, you know, things that you think are accolades that make you, you know, deserving of your position. They just trust you automatically that you're gonna do the right thing and that you're gonna take care of them. And sometimes I retrospectively think about that and it just always kind of amazes me and humbles me greatly. It's really true. I mean, we have such a big responsibility to our patients. And like I said, sometimes they'll tell us things that, you know, after knowing them for five minutes, they haven't told anybody else in their lives. I agree, I agree. It's amazing. But it really does catch me when I think of it deeply. Yeah, definitely. Definitely, you know, it is an honor for what we do and we've all feel, I know we're all lucky to feel like we get to make people better, right? Yeah, yeah. So Danny, you talked about your greatest contribution to Anna about being on the, as fellowship chairman. You did that for six wonderful years. Anything else about any of the contributions to Anna that you can think about? Oh, you know, I didn't do anything great. I just showed up. You know, I was on the board. You know, that's always quite an honor to be a board member of Anna. And, you know, I wish I, you know, if I had anything to do over again, I would have, you know, I would have started earlier. You know, because when I was on the board, you know, one of the first questions that you get asked when you get on the board is, do you want to be president? You know, that's like, do you want to be the president? Do you want to like walk up, you know, get through the chain here? And I said, you know, I don't, I think I'm too old. You know, I think I got on the board too late. You know, by the time I get through everything and, you know, when you're on the board, you kind of see that, well, I gotta go through finance. I gotta be a finance chairman, you know, and, you know, probably need to be a secretary. You know, obviously maybe I need to be a chair of development, you know, fundraising and get, learn all about that. And if you, and then if you kind of add up the years, it's like, gosh, I don't know if I have time, you know? So I kind of said, no, I don't think I want to be, I don't think I want to be president. But if I had started sooner, I would have kind of wanted to do that. But I think being on the board and just, you know, you know, what the board wants is, you know, a board that is reasonable and has some common sense and is looking out for, you know, the NM member who's in a private practice or in a hospital practice or an academic practice that's, you know, just trying to get through it all, you know, and how can we help them do that? Is it through, you know, education with, you know, again, the OLC or meetings and what kind of topics do we want to cover, you know, on our education that would help people? And so it's, you know, it's not just helping patients then, but then you're helping your peers, you know, get through the struggles that they have in their career. So I think that's very rewarding. I enjoyed it. Yeah, those are really, really great words of wisdom. So a couple more questions, Danny, before we kind of, you know, again, it's just been such a wonderful time spent with you. Any other lessons you'd like to pass on, you know, to new ANA members or people that are thinking of becoming ANA members? Well, if they're thinking about it, then the answer is join. You know, I don't think there's any, if you do arthroscopy and you don't necessarily have to be, you know, a big team physician for some major university or anything like that, you know, you don't have to be, you don't really have to be a team physician for anything. And also you don't, you know, you can be a small joint arthroscopist, you know, you can be a wrist arthroscopist or an ankle arthroscopist. And, you know, there's no specialty within arthroscopy that is not represented by ANA. I just think it's very, very helpful for your career. If you're a young orthopedist that does arthroscopy, maybe you're a general orthopedist and you, you know, you do a lot of other things, you're doing total joints and you're doing some arthroscopy, you know, ANA can help you, you know, they can help you make your days, your arthroscopy days simpler, you know, because, you know, maybe you can't spend all your time reading the arthroscopy journal and, you know, attending a whole bunch of meetings, but you could get to an ANA meeting every year or two or every three years or something. It's amazing what you'll get out of that. It's well worth, you know, the membership fee, you know, it's well worth it. I would have to agree with you. You know, I think it's really for anybody who's interested, has any interest at all in arthroscopy, this is the organization actually in the world, you know, to be involved with and- Actually, no question. So welcome, great people. You know, if you're a member, you get the journal, you'll get newsletters, you get, you know, you get information, you know, again, about billing and coding and, you know, how to run your practice and, you know, how to deal with the federal government, you know, all those things. So it's not just technique specific, you know, there's more to it than that. And again, you'll probably meet some friends or maybe see an old resident or something that you haven't seen for a long time, which just don't make your day. Yeah. Well, Denny, I just can't tell you how happy I've been to be able to spend this time with you. You know, you're really one of my favorite people from Anna. We've known each other for so long and got to spend so much time together and, you know, I still remember you sent me Christmas cards every year. Oh, yeah. You know, little things like that. I learned so much from you, you know, and I try to send little notes to patients and things like that. And just that handwritten thing makes a difference. Yeah, I think, you know, it's just about being kind, you know, try to be kind to people. It's, and I think, I think, again, I think that, like we said, the very first question is the biggest thing for me about being an Anna member is the relationships that I built over time, our friendship, you know, and, you know, we are only gonna see each other on Zoom now probably, but that's fine. It's great to see you and I really appreciate you inviting me to do this. Anna has been a huge part of my life and I'm very happy for it. Well, thank you again for taking the time out of your busy schedule and good luck in your new career as president of a Catholic high school. I just think that is so great, you know. It's cool. Yeah, you get to really, again, continue to make a big influence on people, on young people's lives.

ANNA member

camaraderie

orthopedic surgery

mentorship

networking opportunities

challenging cases

resources

connections