All right, well, let's get started. My name is Bill Stetson, and I'm a longtime ANNA member, and I'm also currently a member of the Tech Committee. And one of our charges is to get an oral history of ANNA, and it is truly my honor and pleasure to talk this morning with Alan Barber. Alan is in Plano, Texas. Or where are you living now? Did you move to Frisco? I moved from Frisco. I worked in Plano, moved from Frisco to Prosper, and they're just adjacent suburbs. We're just kind of getting out into the wide open spaces a little bit more. Fantastic. And Alan has been a long, long time ANNA member, and it's just really an honor and pleasure to talk to him today. We go way back. We've known each other for a long time, taking lots of trips together, and so it's really just an honor to see him again and talk to him a little bit about ANNA and the history of ANNA and his fond memories, and I'm really looking forward to this. Alan, thank you for taking the time this morning. My pleasure. Great, great. So, Alan, I do have some questions that we'll start with, and then this will just be sort of a pre-flowing conversation, if it's okay with you. I know you have a lot of fond memories about your time at ANNA and everything that you're doing, but if you can remember, really, what's your favorite aspect of being an ANNA member? Well, I think the favorite aspect is the relationships that have developed. You alluded to the time, the fun we've had together, the experience. It's great to have a bunch of colleagues who are equally interested and similarly trained from around the country. You know, it's kind of hard to be really good, close friends with someone that you're potentially competing with in the local community, but you can be good, close friends with people who are colleagues but non-competitors. I had a similar situation when I was in active duty in the military because we were working together as a team at the hospital, and we were all on the same page and all from the same status, but once we got into private practice, then everybody's looking out for their own economic interests, and there's a certain competitive aspect, even with your own partners. I found the collegiality with no hidden agenda at ANNA, and it's been a great time. People have been able to reach out to and collaborate with, do research with, work on projects with, as you mentioned, travel together, and we see each other frequently enough during the course of the years that over the years, it really adds up to a lot of face time and a lot of fun. Like you mentioned, we hear about our kids growing up and our kids getting married, and yeah, that's the highlight right there. Well, I would have to agree with you. I think one of the favorite things about me being an ANNA member is just all the friends and the great people I've met over the years, and I have to say, you're at the top of the list, and so thank you for being here. This is going to be going out to a lot of ANNA members, young and old, and what sort of advice would you give to maybe a younger colleague or younger self, if you could, as they join ANNA and get to know the organization and get more involved? Well, I'd say that belonging to ANNA gives you the opportunity to improve your practice and to learn. I know we go to an ANNA meeting and we get CME credits, and sometimes you have to have so many credit hours every year for renewal of your licensing, but I would not consider it to be just something for keeping current and going every three years, because if you don't, you're going to get booted off. I would suggest you consider going on an annual basis, be able to develop those relationships. I'd also invite you to become active in the ANNA organization, serving on committees, volunteering, because ANNA is very open, it's very welcoming, and anybody who wants to do some work, pitch in and help out, even starting off with small projects, will be welcome to do that. There are some clubs, and I would call these specialty organizations clubs, that are fairly standoffish, and you have to be connected, and if you didn't go to the right training program or didn't do the right fellowship, you're not going to be as accepted as somebody else. Whereas in ANNA, it doesn't matter where you train, it doesn't matter where you did your fellowship, what kind of degree you have, if you're willing to get in there and be helpful and be collegial and friendly, you'll be well accepted. I would have to say that's really, really a good point, and that's one of the first things I noticed about joining ANNA, about how accepting they were to anybody, and it's very easy to get involved, and you just have to put your name out there and ask, and they'll put you on a committee, and it's really a great way to meet people throughout the country. Our third question, what do you feel was the most important, impactful innovation to orthopedics that you saw during your tenure, in your career, and your life in ANNA? You know, that's kind of hard to really refine. I've been with ANNA for over 35 years, and during the course of that time frame, we were doing open, in my residency, we were doing open meniscectomies, we were doing open ACL reconstructions, and image intensifiers were not available to rod femurs in my hospital, and the MRIs were not available, and CT scans were the new thing, so it's been a host of stuff, but from the standpoint of arthroscopy, I would say the implants have evolved. The suture anchors, I remember when John Richmond and Gene Wolfe were talking about using suture anchors to do bankart procedures, and they were using the G1s, which were the one single hook that my tech made, and then they became the G2s, which had the sprung, the, I guess you could call it the bow and arrow kind of configuration. Well, they have evolved enormously over the course of the years. Now we have biodegradable anchors, now we have all the suture anchors, and you can argue whether one is better than the other, but the anchors have allowed us to do things minimally invasive, arthroscopically, that we would never have been able to do before. Conversely, interference fixation screws was a great innovation, and we used biodegradable interference fixation screws and started developing those, and that has been a great innovation, and then more recently, especially in the face of the tragic opioid epidemic, the use of multimodal pain relief techniques, including the long-acting Marcane devices, injection, and that approach, and reducing the use of narcotics in outpatient arthroscopic surgery. I think those three things are sort of the pillars of innovation that I would point to. Sorry, really great to hear that, because, you know, talking to people with such great history, I think a lot of the new surgeons today don't realize the great inventions that have occurred over the last, you know, 15 to 20 to 30 years. I mean, it's really been game-changing, and it really helps us take better care of our patients. Well, that's one of the reasons why coming to the meetings is so exciting, because you're able to go to the technical exhibits and see what new products are rolling out, and some of the booths, it's always something new every year, it seems like, but even for the other booths, where it's kind of a mimicry of what somebody else did, they're better. You know, it's incremental, small steps, baby steps, but the incremental steps make a long, go a long way. Yeah, it really does, and it's so, some of my mentors, they tell me when they first learned to do arthroscopy, and they were just happy to be inside the joint and see something, they weren't quite sure what they were looking at, and eventually they realized the anatomy and everything else, but it's just so amazing the last, you know, now what we can do inside the shoulder joint, the knee, and the elbow, and other joints, it's just, it's one of my favorite things to learn, and also to make sure that our younger members have an idea of how far we've come in the last 15 to 20 years. Hey, Alan, another question, which one of your favorite memories about your involvement with ANA? Well, I think it's a memory that we share, which is our trip to Cuba. We went down to Cuba, and we were going to teach everybody arthroscopy, and brought some equipment along, and brought some implants to donate, and got to meet the Cubans, and saw their, I would say, their dog and pony show about how great their medicine is, and all that kind of stuff, and it was really interesting, because I had been in communist East Berlin when I was active duty in Europe, before the wall came down, and seen what a communist country looks like, and then I've been back since that time to see what Berlin looks like now it's unified, just night and day difference. Cuba is like something going on in the 50s and the 60s, it really was. Now, this was in 2005, so things have changed, but nonetheless, it was a stark reminder of the value of innovation, and unfettered research, and practice, and lack of government control, and what we get in the United States, compared to what many of our colleagues around the world, who are equally smart, and equally talented, are having to deal with, and caring for their patients. I mean, I remember the big thing in Cuba was the Elizabeth technique, they even put little wires, and fixers on palm trees at the entrance to their hospital, to kind of show the technique, but that was about all they had. Yeah, you know, that's really true, so you know, I have to say that you, with all the others that we went to Cuba with, so many people say that that was really one of their fondest memories, and I would have to agree, it was it was really a great opportunity, we spent a whole week together, and we really got an opportunity to bond, and to talk, and to teach about something that we were really passionate about, and that was arthroscopy. Yes, you know, subsequent to that, we were able to go probably for about another seven or eight years, I think even longer, and then unfortunately, the whole program got shut down by our U.S. government, they told me I couldn't go anymore, because I was violating an embargo, and so unfortunately, cease and desist, and didn't happen anymore, but the good news is, Edward Bless, one of our colleagues from Switzerland, still goes there every year, and still continues on our tradition of teaching, teaching arthroscopy, so and with his, with his European colleagues, so it's so great to hear that we started something, and it's continued. That's good to know. Yeah, so Alan, what's the best piece of career advice that you, that anyone has really ever given you, do you think? Well, my wife and I were talking about this, and the best piece of advice we both came to the conclusion was, move to Texas. You don't have the government control of health care you have here, like, like you do in some parts of the countries on the coasts, and HMOs are not very, are not very, did not penetrate very deeply here, and there was enough competition that within the insurance industry, that they weren't too oppressive. It was, it was opening, open, and growing, and you know, if, if you go from a town, when you start your practice, the town you're in is 70,000 people, and by the time 20 years have passed, it's now 3,300,000 people. There's a lot of patients there, so you know, the explosive growth in the Texas area, with everybody moving in from other parts of the country, has made for a very robust economic environment to practice medicine in. Well, you know, interesting you say that. I remember when you were there, and I got to visit you a couple of times, and I had, my sister lived in, in Plano, not far from where you were, and she said this, everybody was moving to Texas, and I couldn't quite understand it. Now I understand completely, and it still sounds like it's a good place to practice. There's still plenty of business, and still, you know, and like you said, less, less intervention from the government, and just it, it lets people be what they want to be. Well, there certainly is still continued growth. I mean, I, I read the newspaper, actually the hard copy. I'm a old school, and scarcely a week goes by that there's not some article about some company moving from either New York or California, and relocating to the Dallas area, and they bring in 500 employees, or like Toyota did, 4,000, and it just, it just keeps going, and it's right here down the street from where I live. Now, that means we're having an escalation in our costs of housing, and increased congestion, but at the same time, they're building highways and infrastructure that accommodate that, so that's, that's pretty good. Yeah, definitely. So, another question we have here, Alan, what would you, what would you say to incoming, or even potential members about the, of Anna, about the future of arthroscopy, and even minimally invasive surgery? I think that minimally invasive surgery is the wave of the future. It's what people want as consumers. It makes our life easier, because we're not causing as much harm. I remember in medical school, as a medical student, in general surgery rotation, hanging on to something called a Deaver retractor, or a gallbladder procedure, and I would be reaching out with my arm as far as I could, leaning back, trying to get out of the way of somebody, holding the liver out of the way, while they were digging through, up to their elbows, and intestines, and such, trying to find the gallbladder, and take that out. Of course, now it's, and you would stay in the hospital for a week or two, and they would get sick, and there'd be complications. Well, now, it's all done laparoscopically, minimally invasive. It may be a day, day surgery procedure, I don't know, but, it's a dramatic difference. I think that minimally invasive, whether it's colonoscopy, or arthroscopy, or endoscopy, that is the wave of the future, because it does no, we try to do no harm, and I think that's where things are going. It is amazing if you think about it. In our field, we talk about arthroscopy, and how it's revolutionized the ability to see inside the joints without big incisions, but also, general surgery, and laparoscopic cholecystectomies, like you said, and even amazing now, is that they also use robotic surgery, which I'm interested in, and the ability to be able to sit at a computer terminal, and actually to operate on the patient, that's actually just, could be across the hallway, or halfway across the world, if you've got a good internet connection. It's pretty amazing if you think about it. Pretty great stuff, really great stuff. Interesting, when we talk about other developments, this is pretty much on topic. Nowadays, there's a lot of talk about biologics. Do you have any thoughts about that? Because everybody is saying that stem cells are going to cure everything, and of course, as orthopedic surgeons, we have to look at the science. Any idea what are your thoughts about that? Well, one of my areas of interest has been platelet-rich plasma. The problem you get is you get articles, which are meta-analyses, or systematic reviews, and they just say PRP, but there's different kinds of PRP, leukocyte-rich, leukocyte-poor, and so forth. How was it harvested? How many milliliters of blood did you start off with? Did you put anything into it? Was it precipitated by one reactant or another? It's a host of different things. I think the problem with biologics is defining what you are using and trying to do level one or level two research to prove whether or not it's going to work. Now, it might very well be very beneficial, but unfortunately, in our current commercial competitive environment, everybody has to have a me too product. Some companies are much more effective at marketing than others, and they have their thought leaders who embrace their product and say this is it, when in fact, there might actually be a better one at another company. You get a little bit of murkiness in this environment. I think biologics, intellectually, I think that definitely has great potential for the future, but like... Yeah, I would have to agree. I've done a fair amount of research also on PRP, and I think it does have some potential, but you're right. When we look at the studies, the meta-analysis studies, there is like almost apples and oranges because of everything that you said. Even the time that the blood is harvested, it can really change the platelet concentration. We've got government restrictions that prevent you from taking it from the body, taking it outside of the room, manipulating it, and then reinserting it. It has to be done right there in the United States, whereas outside the United States, that external manipulation is possible, which might be better and more effective. Yeah, you're right. Hopefully, time will tell. Hopefully, like you said, we just really need some good level one and level two studies to determine that. Hopefully, that will be done. In an academic setting, it's probably the best place it's done if they can do it properly without the influence of industry. We need industry, but again, we have to be good researchers and give good, honest research about it. Another question that we have, what would you change with anything about your experience with ANA? I know you've been involved with over 35 years. Is there anything you would do differently? I considered that, but I don't think I'd change anything. It's been great. If anything, maybe I would come to more meetings early on because I was trying to decide which meetings to go to. I'd go to the Arthroscopy Association. I'd go to sports medicine. I'd go to the academy. There'd be the fall course, which we used to have. There'd be all these different things. There's only so many courses you can go to. I think going more frequently because there are some groups, which I have, by my experience, determined are less valuable than others. I think that as I stand right now, I think going to ANA on an annual basis is where you're likely to get the most innovative information and have the best exposure to pertinent technology if you're doing principally arthroscopic practice. If you're doing general orthopedics, I think going to the academy would be helpful. But, you know, it's that I usually do that every three years. Well, I would have to agree with you. I think going on a regular basis to an ANA meeting, you know, not only keeping you up to date on your, on arthroscopy, but also those relationships that develop over time are really, they end up being priceless. So another question we have for you, Alan, who would you say was one of your most influential mentors and what did you learn from them? Other than my fellowship director, Bob Stone, I would say it was Don Johnson, past president, Canadian, we won't hold that against him. Excellent athlete. You know, he, his attitude and his teaching was excellent, very influential in terms of how to deal with fellows. One of my colleagues who I would mention, who is very similar to my age, but I still learned a whole lot from his, is Steve Snyder. So those are a couple of guys that I'm always grateful for their impact on my practice and my clinical skills. I have to agree with you. I know, I know both of them and traveled with them and they are both too, just outstanding, you know, teachers and outstanding people. And it's really, that's one of the many benefits of being an ANA member that we got to know really great people, great people like them who are good, good mentors for us and even contemporaries, but they really kind of led by example. It was really, really. Well, that's the thing about ANA, you learn from your peers and you know, one guy is strong in one area. We're not all strong in every area and you, we share and we learn from each other and, and it's kind of like a rising tide floats all boats. Yeah, it sure was. So the next question we have for you, Alan, what excites you about being an orthopedic surgeon, even though you're retired, I'm sure you're still excited about, you know, it's never, it never leaves you. I think it's always in your blood, isn't it? When I was trying to decide what I wanted to do in medical school, I did a rotation at a Tripler Army Medical Center and I actually did a couple of them. And one of the rotations was on orthopedics and one is on general surgery and one neurology and ophthalmology. And, and the thing that struck me about orthopedics was the type of individual who was an orthopedic resident. He was good natured. He was smart. He was funny. He joked a lot. I remember one of the nurses coming out and telling me to be quiet because I was laughing so hard about 11 o'clock at night because I was listening to the intern and the, and the orthopedic resident just talking. And it was just, I was just laughing too, too loud. It was so much fun. And then they let me reduce a bone and they taught me how to use the three point fixation and the, the charnley maneuver and all that. And I put my hands on the crooked angle, a crooked arm of this kid, and I pushed it straight. There was this crack, this yellow Yelp of pain and the arm was straight. I had fixed it right then with my hands. And it was the immediate gratification of being able to fix things that, that yeah, that's me. I'm in for immediate gratification. And that was what it was. And that's why it's been with orthopedics. You see something wrong and you go fix it and it's better as opposed to say hypertension, which never gets better or diabetes or something like that. Yeah. I mean, those are such excellent points. And I had to have to say, I, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. When I was growing up, my dad was a family doctor, family practitioner, but all of his friends that were orthopedic surgeons, they were the happiest guys around. They enjoyed their work more than anybody else. And then I got to see what the field was like. And like you said, being able to treat people and immediate gratification. And then when you're a resident and you see all the general surgeons who aren't so happy, kind of grumpy, running around, you know. No kidding. They were malignant. They were always barking at people about not doing the lab data. Oh man, get off this service. Exactly. And that, that was really one of the things also that, you know, steered me to orthopedic surgery. It was the, it was the, my colleagues and the people I got to work with really great. So let me ask this. I know this is really, now that do you, now that you're retired, do you miss going back into the operating room? I do. But I don't miss it enough that I would want to go through all the stuff again. I have, I have assisted my partners in cases, some shoulder cases from time to time. I was doing that for a couple of years after I quit practicing in the office. I still do research. I still review articles. I'm the associate editor of a couple of journals and I have done international things, meetings with Zoom and lecturing and stuff like that. So I'm still doing orthopedics. It's just not going into the office. This summer, I'm going to be going to the world, to the National Jamboree of Scouting in West Virginia. And I'll be at the Jamboree Health Center doing orthopedic and medicine stuff for the scouts who are going to be there in July. So for a couple of weeks, living in a tent. It's not a third world country, but it's similar. And it's just, you know, using my skills. And of course, I'm involved with scouting and whenever we're on a camp out or somebody's got a problem, they come and ask me to fix it. So I know generally for the bumps and bruises, what best to do. I'm sure you're a great resource for them. Interesting you say that. I've gotten to know Lanny Johnson and talking, you know, he stopped practicing or doing surgery many years ago, but he says he still is an orthopedic surgeon and he's still actively involved and just like you. And even though he's not in the operating room, he's still doing some wonderful and great things. Yeah. I found that kind of strange because my identity is so tied up with being an orthopedic surgeon that when somebody asked me, so I guess you're no longer an orthopedic surgeon. And I said, you know, that's an interesting way of saying it. I think of myself as an orthopedic surgeon, you know, board certified. And the good news is it'll never expire. I don't have to retake boards. Yeah. I think that's a pretty significant self-identity thing. I would agree. I would agree. So another next question, Alan, what do you, I mean, you've got so many great contributions to Anna, I have to say. Do you feel like there was one, what was your greatest contribution or significant contribution that you made to Anna? I think being on the Anna board, being the treasurer, those were really important. And it gave me an understanding of how the presidential line works and how the board works to direct Anna's direction and critique staff and that kind of stuff. But to me, in terms of impact, serving as the annual meeting program chairman for Don Johnson's presidential year was really, I think it was a significant thing because we were able to, in conjunction with Don Johnson's vision, select the presenters, select the programs, the symposia, the instructional course lectures, that kind of stuff, and put together the package for the meeting in Vancouver. I thought that was probably, that might be the most significant single activity I did. Well, I have to say, I remember that meeting in Vancouver. It was really a special meeting. I remember being there with Erica, my wife, and a few others. And actually, we actually had some of our Cuban friends come that time because they were able to travel to Canada, right, which was really wonderful. That was a sort of reunion for some of us, which was really great to see. And that was some cigars. A few, just a few. Well, you know, Don Johnson has, I'm sure, a few stories to tell about his trip to Cuba too, along with Brian Day, as you remember, you know, both great contributors to the Anna legacy. So Alan, what would you say, what's one of your favorite lessons that you learned through Anna that maybe you'd like to pass on to others? Well, I don't know that there was any one lesson that I learned, but the thing I have observed is that the innovative concepts seem to advance ahead of the facts. And people, we tend to be drawn to the latest new thing. And one of the things that I would tell my fellows is that don't be seduced by the latest new thing. Just because it's the newest thing just because it's the newest thing out there doesn't mean it's any better. And I remember Lanny Johnson, who you mentioned, designing a staple that he used to reattach ACL stunts to the FEMA. Now we know in hindsight, I mean, that was very innovative. And a lot of people thought it was the greatest, greatest thing. And we learned that, well, actually, we were not attaching it at an anatomically correct site by doing that. And the tissue we were using was not the best. And it didn't work too well. And not to beat up on Lanny Johnson, who I bought his book. And when I started my lesson, I learned so much from him because he was scoping every joint in the body, including the temporal mandibular joint and your fingers. And he'd stick a scope in just about anything. Just a wealth of knowledge. But there are innovations that come along, whether it's a double bundle ACL doesn't necessarily mean it's better than a single bundle ACL. But there was this concentrated focus on that because it was the latest new thing. And when I was in my training, I was taught to do patella instability surgery by what we called a medial reaching lateral release open procedure, medial peripatellar incision. And you'd imbricate the medial retinaculum. And it was a big scar. And they tend to get stiff, but their kneecap would stay in place, probably because of all the scarring. Well, then we started doing arthroscopic stuff. And Ron Yamamoto in Irving, Texas reported a few cases of an arthroscopic medial reefing. And Jeff Holbrook reported that as well. And so we started doing all inside arthroscopic imbrication of the medial retinaculum. And it did well. And I did something like that, had a five year follow up at 90% success rate that we reported. But then somebody came up with a new thing, which is called the medial patella femoral ligament reconstruction. Now, I have yet to see any study that compares the NPFL reconstruction to the arthroscopic medial reefing lateral release. But everybody's embraced the NPFL because it's the latest new thing. I'm not. And then the tibial osteotomy, the Elmsley-Trelat, well, now you have the different, got the Fulkerson osteotomy, which was originally designed to treat osteoarthritis when John published that stuff in the 80s. And now people are doing that. And now, then I just recently read an article where they were comparing the difference between combining an NPFL with an osteotomy to an NPFL alone. Well, guess what? You put them both together and you do better. But goodness gracious, you need to select the patient for the procedure, not just do everything, throw everything at them. So I think that the thing I've learned over time is to be a little bit skeptical of the latest new thing, because you have to think through why they're doing what they're doing and whether just because they have a written and published report, it makes any sense. You know, those are such wonderful words of wisdom. I wish every new orthopedic resident and new graduate would hear that because I would agree a hundred percent. And we see it all the time. People out there thinking, doing the latest and greatest thing, double bundle, medial patel femoral ligament reconstruction, you know, without a lot of good science behind it. And so I really wish that everybody, everybody hears that. It's worth its weight in gold. Well, and also what comes around goes around. So when I was starting off trying to figure out how to do ACL reconstructions, Jimmy Andrews was talking about an iliotibial band tenodesis, and he would weave two separate sutures through the lateral, through the iliotibial band and tension them with transfemoral sutures, one at 90 degrees and one at 10 degrees flexion. One supposedly being the anterior medial bundle, posterior lateral bulk. And well, of course it didn't work, but the lateral iliotibial band tenodesis was a big thing. Arnold Coker and all those, McIntosh, those guys doing these operations in lieu of doing an ACL reconstruction. Well, now we know that putting tissue in the middle of the joint works a whole lot better than doing something extra articular because the extra articular procedures didn't work. We used to get paid for doing that. And so people were doing ACL, intraarticular ACL reconstructions with the iliotibial band tenodesis because you got paid for doing both separate procedures. Then they stopped paying for doing the iliotibial band tenodesis and people stopped doing it. And the patients did just as well. So guess what? Now we're doing the iliotibial band tenodesis and we're doing the anterior lateral ligament reconstruction. And where's the data? Just the fact that you can do it. I mean, so I'm a little skeptical because I've seen that particular concept come and go in my career and now it's back. It's kind of like Jack Nicholson. Isn't that the truth? It seems like so many of you think something is brand new, but it's actually just reinventing something that's been done previously. One of the things that I did sort of as a lark when I started my practice was I got old copies of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery a hundred years ago, from a hundred years ago. I went to that library and accessed it. If you'll go back a hundred years into the literature and read a number of journal articles, not only are they really would not pass muster by today's standards, but the topics are the same. And many of the things that they're talking about are the same things they're talking about doing now. That's an interesting place to get ideas for research. Yeah, it really isn't. That's really true. I love to do that too. Look at old articles and where we are today and it's the same subject matter. It really is. We obviously haven't solved it. No, obviously not. So Alan, what would you say to new or to potential new members who are maybe thinking of joining Anna or maybe joining other organizations? You know, kind of as a wrap up, what would you kind of say to them now that you've had such a wonderful career, you've done so many different things in orthopedic surgery and in Anna, what's your thoughts about that? There has been a decline in reimbursements. So the amount of money you make will not support belonging to every club and going to every meeting. So you have to figure out what your practice is. If your practice is principally an arthroscopic practice or a sports practice, you might want to use those parameters in terms of judging which club to join. If you're a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, maybe that's where you ought to be. If you're doing general orthopedics, I think that you probably would benefit from the academy, from the meetings, maybe the trauma stuff. But if your practice is principally knee and shoulder and ankle and wrist hand, and you're doing principally, it's not a pure hand practice, I think the arthroscopy association has the most benefit for the cost. And the other thing I would tell you is that Anna is, as we alluded to, a meritocracy. If you get in and if you work hard, they will recognize you for who you are and not where you come from. I know and I don't mean to say that this is disparaging, but I know that we had guys on the board of directors of Anna who did not have a degree from the United States. And we had people who had D.O. and M.D. degrees after the name. And we had people who were principally private practice, having nothing to do with universities, and people who were in academia. And we had people who were from Canada and from the United States. And we even had a few people who are participating who were from Mexico. So it truly is the arthroscopy association of North America. Now, that's really, really a good point. It really is a meritocracy. And whether you're an academician or you're in private practice, I think Anna really has a place for you. So, Alan, we're about kind of wrapping things up. You know, it's really just really been quite an honor to, you know, to talk to you and to see you again. And I look forward to seeing you at the Anna meeting in New Orleans. Any final thoughts that you maybe would like to share? Again, this is the Anna oral history, kind of wrapping everything up with the history of Anna. And I'd like to hear any parting thoughts that you may have. Well, I'm just grateful and honored to be asked to share my reminiscences about my experience. And and from my my hope is that it's not over, that I'm going to continue to be involved with Anna. Maybe not as actively as I was in the past, but but it sure I think I take away from my time with Anna friendships that are lifelong friendships that have lasted me for decades. And and it's it has a lot of great memories and I hope they continue. Well, that's really wonderful here. And even though you're not you're not doing orthopedic surgery, you're still an orthopedic surgeon. That's right. I think that's I think that's true for all of us. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, Alan, thank you again. I'm really looking forward to we're going to this interview, along with many others. We're going to put on the on the website for the Anna oral history through the through the tech committee. And I know there's you look forward to hearing from all your other colleagues and their great memories, including, as you mentioned, Don Johnson and Steve Snyder and really a host of others. So I think it's really a wonderful project. And I just thank you again for taking the time to to share your thoughts with us. It's my pleasure. Thank you for the invitation. Oh, thank you. Please give my best to your family. Look forward to seeing you.

Bill Stetson

Alan Barber

ANNA

orthopedic surgeon

relationships

collegial atmosphere

continuous learning

minimally invasive surgery