This is General Session Diversity Session, AANA Awards, and the announcement of the 2024-2025 slate. Your moderators are Dr. John Tokish and Dr. Rachel Frank. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. This next section I think is particularly special to me because for lots of reasons. One of them is that I have a daughter who is amazing. Now she's going into nursing school and I could not be more proud of her. But I think many of us kind of go through this field and recognize that in orthopedics especially we're the whitest and we're the malest of all the medical subspecialties. And we've talked about the energy that we're trying to put in to change that to make this a positive place. And so Anna does an annual diversity lecture and when I sat down with Rachel and we started talking about it, I asked her to put some thought about saying, look, you have a perspective I don't have here. And so Rachel said, hey, I have an idea and this is the idea. And I'm just going to tell you, I love it. So I'm going to ask her to come up and introduce the session. And I cannot wait to listen to these women and the men talk about their experiences. Rachel. All right. Well, hello again. Hope you had a good lunch. It is my honor to be up here for such an important part of Anna's mission and vision with respect to diversity initiatives and what an amazing group that we have. So for the sake of time, when people think of the word diversity, this sometimes comes up. What is diversity? If you've seen the movie Anchorman, you can probably think of what's being said right now. But sometimes people don't know what does diversity mean and why should I care about it? Well, there's a lot of different definitions for diversity, but it is the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and different genders, sexual orientations, et cetera. A lot of different ways to describe it. When we look at the workforce of orthopedic surgeons across the U.S., the census data from 2018 is the most up-to-date data that we have. So this is a little bit outdated, but it's the most official data from the academy of practicing surgeons just under 8% women. When we look at that by age, as women are younger, so our younger generations, more women. So common number for residencies, 14%, 15%. So practicing surgeons under age 40, we're at about 15.9%. So we are doing better. Diversity initiatives have gotten better. When we look at ethnicity across all workers, all orthopedic surgeons in the U.S., according to the census, we're about 85% Caucasian. And while younger patients tend to have a bit more diversity, it's not by much. So we're not making as many positive strides with improving our diversity with respect to ethnicity as we are with respect to sex. When we look at Anna's efforts, Anna's made a lot of efforts. We had an incredible specialty day in 2022 partnering with the RJOS, the Future Scope program that we've heard about that's going to continue to grow, the Diversity and Inclusion Research Award, which is a great initiative to recognize authors who put in the efforts for these types of projects. But I think what really tells the story about the diversity within Anna is our members. And we have an amazing, really special group of people here that we've invited for this lecture. We have four orthopedic, current, recently matched residents, current residents, and practicing surgeons, all of whom have been inspired by people in their family who are also orthopedic surgeons. And this is not a combination that we see that often. We often see father-son. We often see, that's it. We don't often see mother-daughter. We don't often see father-daughter, but here we have four examples. So I've invited each of them to come tell their story. I'm going to let them introduce themselves, and then we're going to talk a little bit. This session's really tight on time, so I've asked them to be brief, but I think they'll all be willing to chat with you afterwards and share their stories, both from the father's side and the daughter's side. And I think this really shows a positive spin on a lot of diversity lectures that sometimes can be a little bit challenging, maybe even a little bit negative. This is a positive outlook on how diversity has been embraced by Anna and been part of our team. Without further ado. Do you want to stand, or do you want a comfortable seat? Oh, I can sit. All right, perfect. Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name's Anne-Marie Kelly. A little bit about me. I'm just finishing up my second year in orthopedic surgery residency at Dartmouth. I went to the University of Notre Dame for my undergrad, where I competed on the varsity track and field team. I minored in poverty studies, and I also co-founded a club there called Compassionate Care Medicine that's near and dear to my heart that still exists today. In terms of, I had a very early interest in the doctor-patient relationship and serving underserved populations early on in my career. I subsequently got my master's in global health at UCSF, where I studied, in Kenya, factors that facilitate provider stress and poor patient-centered care. I went back to medical school at Jefferson. I met my husband on interview day. He's an anesthesia resident, so we couples matched, and that brings me to today. How did I get here? In no small part, this is due to my supporters and mentors, the shoulders of people I've stood on thus far. One of the most important of these is my dad, John D. Kelly IV, who's probably already losing it over there. A lot of girls, young girls, grow up with their dads as their hero, and I was obviously no exception to this, but anyone that's met my dad from about 1,000 miles away can see how passionate he is and the joy he has for his life as well as his career. Seeing my dad literally skip to work every day, of course that had an indelible impression on me, something I wanted to emulate in my life. This had a profound effect on me. So once I made that goal for myself to go into orthopedics, I knew that was something I was never going to give up on, and my dad was fearlessly in my corner the entire time. You know, Dr. Tokish talks about a shared mission. We had this shared mission, and with my dad in my corner, this unwavering faith, I thought there's just absolutely no way I can lose. I'm going to do this. So from pep talks before the MCAT, studying for Step 1, even now, sending pictures of my reductions when I'm on consults, running stuff by him, it's just been truly one of the greatest joys of my life. I have some pictures here, maybe somewhere. But my dad and I have been able to work in a cadaver lab together. We've been able to go to Notre Dame games as part of the Notre Dame Orthopedic Society, which has been so special. We've collaborated on research, and we've even written a book together. So he's been a tremendous source of support for me, and I think a key takeaway from my experience is that there are some unique challenges that women and other minorities in orthopedic surgery face, but I've found that a winning combination to overcoming these is grit, just not giving up, and your support system. So I've been blessed with an unbelievable one. My dad and my husband are two people I credit a lot of my success to. So in terms of diversity, at the end of the day, the data is pretty clear that more diverse and representative treatment teams improve patients' access to care, their perceptions of that care that they receive, and their health outcomes. So there's also a lot of data that suggests that the fields of orthopedics is notably behind in this regard. Oh, perfect, thank you. And so orthopedics is notably behind in this compared to other specialties. So to me, in my future career, just surrounding myself with a diverse team, drawing inspiration from its members will mean better care, which I believe is something we're all striving to afford. I'll just conclude by saying that I'm immensely grateful that I had someone, my dad, who I spoke to every single day, believed in me, knew there was a place for me in this field, and that has just completely made all of the difference. And I'd argue that everyone in this room has that same special power to be able to positively influence others to join our amazing field by believing in them and by supporting them. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here, and thank you to my forever hero, my dad. Hi everyone, I'm Katherine Branch, but most people call me Kitty. It's an honor to be sharing the stage with these amazing people and having the chance to talk to you all. I'm wrapping up my PGY3 year at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and I will be applying to Sports Fellowship this fall. My dad, Dr. George Branch III, has set the best example for me as not only an orthopedic surgeon but as a human being as well. As long as I can remember, I wanted to be a doctor. Unfortunately, my toy box didn't come with a 30-degree scope or a 70-degree scope, so I had to settle for a stethoscope, but we still ended up here today. Occasional nights, I used to sneak downstairs after normal bedtime and fall asleep on my dad's lap as he dictated his cases from the day or his clinic notes. So the seeds were planted early. Whether it was watching and eventually helping him provide medical coverage for the Washington, D.C., professional tennis tournament, visiting him in clinic and then running his clinic as a medical assistant during my gap year, or joining him in the OR as a spectator, then helper, I have had the blessing of going from being a front row observer to being en route to being a colleague, and it has been one of the greatest joys of my life. I was able to see that not only did I want to be a doctor, but I wanted to be the best kind of doctor, an orthopedic surgeon. Marian Wright Edelman said, you can't be what you can't see. I was able to see my dad work hard in a career that he also loved. As a black woman in orthopedics, I feel it's my privilege and calling to try and lift others up as I climb and also bring along others who haven't had the same front row seat as myself. To me, this looks like providing equitable patient care, involving myself in patient advocacy, and using my voice to speak for those without a platform. Every step of the way, I've had great mentors, friends, and family encouraging me through the good, the bad, and the ugly. The ugly, as you can see, also included some spine research at University of Colorado before I saw the sports light. The best part about moving up the ranks is getting to advise and teach people. My heart is so full of gratitude for those who have been there for me, and it's a joy that I get to be that for others. I'm so grateful for my family pictured here. Along with my father, my mother has instilled in me the values that serve every day of endurance, faith, and thankfulness. I'm excited to continue to learn and grow. At my institution, we discuss the concept of lifelong learning, and I think that there's a beauty to being an unfinished project. Where is it in your life that you would be able to grow? One of my passions is increasing the sense of belonging for people that have typically been othered in this field, whether that's gender, racial, or cultural minorities. I once heard in a DEI lecture that belonging is the opposite of fitting in. In the application process, whether it's for residency or medical school, we frequently talk about this concept of, oh, they're a good fit, or, oh, it's a bad fit. What would it look like if we instead asked the question of how do we make people feel like they belong? I encourage everyone in the audience to be willing to reach back, to mentor, and to advocate. Having majority identities doesn't exclude you from the important task of continuing to make orthopedics a field reflective of our world and patients. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much to Dr. Frank and Dr. Tokish for including my father and I on this panel. Diversity in orthopedics is a critical issue to both of us, and my father has been a constant advocate for women in orthopedics throughout his career. I'm very proud of him and all that he's accomplished. For those of you that don't know me, I'm JJ Ryu. I'm an orthopedic surgeon in Seattle, Washington at Kaiser. I specialize in sports medicine and arthroscopy, and I've been in practice for about six years. My story really starts with my dad's story. My father is Richard Ryu. He's been practicing in my hometown of Santa Barbara, California for nearly 40 years. He's very involved in ANA and was ANA president from 2009 to 2010. My father is a son of Korean immigrants, and his story is one of hard work and perseverance. My father grew up poor, cleaning, and living in a motel. Education was the most important thing to his family, and he went on to Yale and then UCSF for medical school and residency, did his fellowship at Kerlan Jobe, and started private practice in 1986. I would be remiss in not mentioning the profound influence that my mom and my sisters have had on my career and my life. My mom is the glue of the family, and she, my dad, and my sisters have been with me through thick and thin. My sisters and I used to joke that my dad should have had three sons. After all, our nicknames are JJ, Al, and Sam. In hindsight, I think one of the best things about how I was raised was that it was never about gender. My dad treated me like he would have any son, and I benefited from this greatly. I grew up playing sports, watching football, developing a thick skin from honest feedback about my athletic and academic endeavors. I grew up believing that women had no limits to what they could accomplish. Looking back on my childhood, I remember clearly how hard my dad worked, the phone calls, the rounding, the constant grind to be a better surgeon and physician. He'd always try to make it home for dinner. My first real core memory of orthopedic surgery was going with my dad to a shoulder cadaver lab at the age of seven. I told my mom the cadavers looked a bit like rotisserie chickens, and I remember following my dad around the funny-smelling room trying to figure out what was going on. Whenever I'm asked when did I know I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon, the image of this lab pops into my brain. Although this may have been the start of my interest, the younger me was not convinced. Stubborn, just like my father, I figured I would find my own path. Eventually, I attended Tulane for medical school. I was certain that I wanted to do something different and separate from my dad. Unfortunately, after I rotated on all the different services, I was disappointed in my experience. Begrudgingly, I agreed to do a few weeks on the ortho service. After a few weeks on the Tulane ortho service, I was sold. Dr. Saville was my mentor. I loved the people. I loved the surgeries, the team spirit, the collegial environment. During my sub-I's, my dad gave me some advice. He said to be a workhorse, not a show horse, and to remember that there is a difference between oppression and criticism. After med school, I went on to do my residency at Stanford and my fellowship at SCOE. I've been truly lucky in my career in so many ways. I know the term Nepo baby is controversial, but I've had the benefit of not only my father's support, but the support of a wide-reaching network of orthopedic surgeons, especially in Anna. These opportunities are not always available to everyone, and I recognize my privilege. The bottom left photo is taken the night before my wedding, which is really just a big Anna party and I think everyone's smiling because Dr. Toka just poured some pappies. And at SCOE, Drs. Ferkel, Snyder, and Gettleman were true mentors, and I can't thank them enough. I also credit my mom and her Anna friends for always looking out for me. So this is my life now. I'm a full-time orthopedic surgeon. My husband, Mike Githens, does orthopedic trauma at Harborview. I have two kids, Ben and Charlie, ages four and one, and I love them more than anything. Being able to be a mom and an orthopedic surgeon is something I cherish and I'm very proud of, and I hope that others have the opportunity if that's what they choose. So I just wanted to end on this thought. I really want to see more women choose orthopedics, and I know it's a tough choice for many reasons. I think Dr. Toka's happiness study results are a bit discouraging. However, the silver lining is we have data and we can try to figure out why. I know I've lived a very privileged life. I've had many wonderful opportunities. I still face sexism and racism in my career. When I read this poem by Rupi Kaur, it really struck me. I immediately thought of my father. Education, independence, and knowing one's self-worth were all things he valued for himself and for his daughters. I know that I'm capable, I'm strong, and I can weather any storm. Encouraging women who believe that they are strong and capable and that they are deserving of all the opportunities in this world is the game changer. So thank you to my father. I'm proud to be an orthopedic surgeon, but even more proud to be your daughter. Wow. Thank you everyone that is here, and I really want to thank Dr. Frank, Dr. Tokish for this, taking part in this wonderful meeting. You have like 20 or maybe 30 minutes to talk about diversity. That's really incredible. I was like emotional here. My name is Camila. I'm from Brazil. I live in Sao Paulo. It's the biggest city in Brazil. I'm in practice since 2010, so 14 years to now, since I was 29 years old. So as long as I remember, I wanted to be a doctor too, and so my sister. So I have a sister, and she's an orthopedic surgeon too. So my sister and I, we have one year difference in age. You went to the same university, so we stayed all six years together. And when we finished medical university, my father encouraged us to do radiology or dermatology or plastic surgery, but not orthopedic. But the thing is, our patient was orthopedic, and we both went to orthopedic surgeon. We did our residence together too, at the same place, at the same university. And then we decided not to do the same specialty. So we changed. Now I am a knee specialist. In Brazil, we are knee, shoulder, and hips. So I'm knee specialist, and she is shoulder and elbow. So we are not same, same right now. But we're still working together. We're all in the same institute working, but you don't have the same routine every day. So we see each other for like a lot of, every day, almost every day. I finished my residency, and then I moved to the hospital that we work today together. But at a certain point, I decided I didn't want to be my father's assistant. That's not an option, because my dad, it's Moises Cohen, and he's a knee specialist too. And he told me, ah, do you want to work together? At some point, we talked, and we decided not to work together every day. So it's better for me to have my own patients and also his life. He has his other assistants, other like group working together. And today, I have my routine and also my patients. You work at the same clinic three times a week, and each one in their own room. You can see some pictures that you work, some cases we work together. I had a surgery, and nowadays, like less than you used to do at the beginning of my career. Now, we work less together, but sometimes. And I know that always, the doors are open for me. When I want to be with him, for sure, he will be really open arms to receive me every day. We have really great moments together, spending the Congress, in the meetings, and also having fun in the meetings together. It's a pleasure. He's very, very enthusiastic about orthopedics. I'm a big fan of him, and I'm sure if you know him, you're going to be a fan of him, too. He's amazing. And he's not here because he's in ESCA in Milan right now, so my sister is. So my sister is with him in Milan, in ESCA. And I'm here in this wonderful meeting, and I'm really glad that I'm here. So it's a very pleasure to be here, and I would say for all the women how lucky we are to have our fathers. And it's just a very, very great thing to share their experiences and great moments together. And also bad moments, too, but most of the time, great moments together. So thank you very much to be part of this, to be part of this, and really thank my dad for being this wonderful guy, and also my sister to be with me in all my journey. Thank you. So what an amazing panel. And I think we have just under 10 minutes left. That's all you need to... You can go back one more, JT. I mean, you can keep that one up, too. So just under 10 minutes left, and the purpose of this diversity session or lecture, so to speak, is as a woman, I think sometimes, and I'd be curious as to what my female colleagues here think, I sometimes get a little bit sensitive to some of the diversity talks where it's negative. Something bad happened, and I overcome. Not that that's not important, and I'm sure all of you, not just the women, but everyone on this panel has had experiences that you've had to overcome, everyone in this audience has. But what's unique about this panel is, look what happens when you're supported. Look what happens when you see what you can become, because it's real to you in your everyday life. Look what happens when someone says, yes, I believe in you. And look what has happened with our amazing surgeons here. So I just want to applaud not only our ladies up here, but the dads. And I'd like the audience to give these dads some love. JT, I think you had a few questions for our esteemed colleagues here. Yeah, so I think being a dad of a superstar, or a few superstars, I think it's always a tough thing about coaching. So I'd like to hear from you women, was your dad extra tough on you? Tougher than others? Was he extra hard? Where is the balance between support, and sometimes you've got to get a swift kick in the backside, right? And so tell us how that was handled, and how they balanced it. Either particularly well, or particularly bad. JJ's like, give me the bad one, I got it, I'm on this. That was unintentional. She signed an NDA. I think my dad has done an incredible job of finding that balance. I think it's important to be kid-specific. Some kids really do need that push. I am more of someone who's my own worst enemy. So if it was a bad or negative experience, I already clocked it. I know what's going wrong. So it was really his voice to remind me when things did go right. Because he's like, no, look how good you did there. That's awesome. So he figured out what I needed, which was more of the warmth and support. Yeah, I think my dad did a great job of not disciplining me, but just holding me to a high standard. Which I would say just permeated every aspect of my life. It was never, oh, you didn't do this, you came up short. It was, oh, I just expect so much of you, and I know you're capable of so many amazing things. If you want to do this, this, this, this is what you're capable of. So it was never, oh, you didn't get first place in that national meet. It's like, well, you worked really hard, and you did amazing. This is very kid-dependent, I agree. So he definitely taught my sister and I in different ways. But just held me to a high standard with unconditional love and support. I just want to add something. When you have a famous dad, I think all the people around are going to think that you have an easier journey to go. So it's easier for you. And I don't think it's easier. I think you have maybe some ways that you can go easier. But you have to prove your own methods and your own character, too. So I think our dad, probably yours, they don't want to see us suffering or having a bad choice. So they want to guide us to a good choice all the time. And I think that's wonderful, because you have a leader and a mentor all the time in your life. Every day and every minute that you want. That's the beauty of having a famous dad. And I think the people around, they have to look for us and look at us and say, so they're the same as everybody. They're trying to build a very nice journey to you. And they are trying to be someone better than even their dad. They are the same. So I think that's a very important point in my life. My dad expected a lot of me and my sisters. And I think that can be interpreted in multiple ways, right? But I actually think that was the best thing, because he believed in us. He thought there was no limit to what we could accomplish. And when you have a father figure in your life who is a parental figure that does that, you really do believe in yourself. And I really grew up believing that women could do anything. And there was absolutely no question in our household that we could be whatever we wanted to be. And so I think with high expectations, there are some, you know, some tears. Tears, for sure. But overall, I think it really helped us kind of, you know. So I wanted to ask one more question, and that is, you know, we'd all love it if the world was changed now and you aren't in programs or haven't experienced any of the stuff that, you know, we all know has gone on and still goes on. So what I'd love to hear briefly, if I could, is give us an example of maybe some advice. So I'm particularly interested. So, you know, George, you come home and Kitty faces a particular thing. Maybe it's about, you know, sex or race. And, you know, on the one hand, you're in the culture. You get it. You've seen all that stuff before. How do you advise? I mean, how do you? Give me a piece of advice maybe that you gave to your daughter or a piece that you got from your father that helped you get through it, either positive or negative. Well, it can be a long story, but I think my gratitude comes from having been a third-generation physician in my family. And when I heard some of the things that my grandfather and father had to go through, you know, my wife, Kemalai, made sure that our children knew about it. And so it's not a matter of if you're going to face some of these things. It's just a matter of when. And if you're raised with the belief that you're just as good, you belong there, then it's just sharing your experiences. And I think positivity needs to really be stressed among our young people. I mean, with what's happening with the Internet, everybody's critical, everybody's negative. We have to hit the pause button, look at the qualities that people are progressing, and enhance their qualities rather than dwelling on the negatives. I love that. Anybody else? I think in my journey, two things I've learned the hard way, like everything else in life. Ann Marie is a very resilient soul, but she would say things in passing like, yeah, I heard this snarky comment the other day, but, you know, that's part of the deal. And I said, no, it's not. It's not part of the deal. You shouldn't tolerate that. And the second thing I learned, JT, is this is the boxer in me, and my default option was that when I heard these things to go up and punch people out, then I realized that she has to fight her own battles, and by golly, she does. That was the greatest breakthrough for me is that this woman is tough, and I've got to let her fight her battles, even though subconsciously I want to throw a couple left hooks, but this is her gig. This is her battle. So it's not acceptable. You can do it, but you've got to fight. I think she's got a better left hook than you anyway, Cal. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Rick? You know, brief comment. So someone asked me, don't you regret not having a son? And I would tell you, not for an instant. Amen. You know, we're getting to the end of this session, and out of respect for everyone here to kind of stay on the schedule, we could sit and talk about this for an hour, and JT actually told me we could stay for an hour, but I think him and Vicky will kill me, so we're not going to do that. I want to thank the speakers for being here, and RBG is a special role model, I think, for many of us, but certainly for me, and the word woman here could be replaced with anyone that's not the majority, but for the sake of this discussion, women belong in places, in all places, where decisions are being made. It shouldn't be that women are the exception. You can see today, these daughters, these dads, these doctors, are making it so that women are not the exception. They're making it so that women are at the table. They have a seat at the table, they have a voice, and they're supported. And it's amazing what we can achieve when there's positive energy, and I think that's where Anna is really helping turn orthopedics. And so I'm grateful to JT, I'm grateful to this organization, I'm grateful to each and every one of you for being willing to step up here in the middle of our annual meeting and share your stories, and I look forward to the discussions that we'll have throughout the rest of the day and the rest of the meeting and throughout the rest of our careers. So thank you all very much. Thank you. Find your dad. Find your dad. Thank you, my friend. Thanks, guys, appreciate you very much, huh? Thank you. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. I can't wait to hear from you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Always appreciate it. It was an honor to have you on and tell us your story. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Hey, you bet. Thanks, guys. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the greatest honors bestowed on the president of ANA is the ability to recognize up to two distinguished award recipients at the ANA annual meeting. The two individuals that I have chosen have served ANA as deeply as any two that I have known in our association. Jeff Abrams served for more than a decade on our board, culminating in his presidency right here in Boston in 2016. I was lucky enough to serve as Jeff's program chair during that meeting and, as such, got a ringside education in leadership. He also taught me a ton about communication and, honestly, more about positivity than I thought possible in a surgeon. Even better, Beth and I got the opportunity to learn directly from Kathleen, and we have counted our blessings for her advice and guidance in so many aspects of our lives. Home on Sundays, for example, was a rule at the Abrams house that Kathleen taught us, and we have tried to implement since. And I used to think that it's just impossible with some of the travel. And Kathleen said, listen, if Jeffrey can do it, you can do it. And I've heard that voice in my head comforting me many times since that time. Jeff has provided distinguished service to all of us at ANA, whether it be as chair or an engine of ANA or the ANA-ASES biennial meeting that was his baby from throughout, taught us a ton about collaboration when it wasn't cool. His five-volume textbook series on arthroscopy, he's also been a tireless instructor and chair of OLC meetings teaching the younger generation. In spite of being many years removed from the presidency, he's still teaching those courses, and he remains among our highest-rated instructors in every course that we have. As an innovator, Jeff was one of the first to perform rotator cuff tears arthroscopically. I remember watching his videos and swearing that they were sped up to 2X, but then I watched him in person and noted he was actually slowing it down so we could follow him. That's a true story. When I was his program chair, my first draft excluded him from most academic responsibilities so he could be free to roam and enjoy his meeting. The one harsh word he had for me during our entire time together was he asked me if I thought he was soft, and he made it clear that he was more than available to give any talk, demonstrate any technique, or do any demo, any surgery I needed done, and that is the spirit of Anna. I remember asking him for advice, as I have on many occasions, about starting my own practice, and he told me this, be famous in your own town. Now I thought, how does a guy who travels 50 times a year to all over the world become the most popular guy in his town? I've had the privilege of looking after more than a dozen of his patients for just different reasons across the country, and I can tell you, he is. He's become famous because he's committed to his patients, and he's become just a complete example of what it's like to be all in in your community. His community's in Princeton, but his community's the world as well. And though I am no Jeff Abrams, I hear this voice in my head about being famous in your own town and committing to your community. If Jeffrey can do it, you can do it too. And they continue to comfort me and inspire me to be at my best, whether I'm home or away. I appreciate his humility, his sense of priorities, and his willingness to listen, talk through and guide the next generation through the angst and the highs and lows of life decisions of which Anna has greatly benefited in general, and I have benefited in particular. Bob Burks is the most honest surgeon that I've ever met. Now sometimes that doesn't work out in your favor, such as when he writes the critique in a journal of some of what you think is your best work, and he trashes it. He's honest about it. Once, at a Metcalf meeting, he got tired of me quoting the literature. That was a sign of insecurity. I don't have any experience to try to quote the literature. So he stationed one of his fellows right down in the front row to fact check anything that I said and was to report on mistakes that I made with quoting the literature for the rest of the day. You can bet that I was careful in choosing my words that day. And I can tell you, when I come to any meeting, if there's a guy, anytime there's a podium across the way and I'm debating Bob Burks, I am on my best behavior and it's the one thing I prepare for more than anything else. I remember him standing up strongly against open access journals, something that we face today that remains a challenge, a lone voice in the wilderness, in a group of societies who saw the obvious economic benefits, if not the academic integrity risks. He's done things the right way, the hard way. For those of you who remember the Metcalf meeting, Bob was its chairman from 1985 until 1916. For those of you who are too young to have attended, I am deeply sorry for you. Bob brought the Metcalf to partner with Anna for many years and it was the world's premier winter sports meeting for decades. As an instructor, it was the hottest ticket going. It was a very big goal for all of us to be invited to, and more importantly, to be invited back to. Bob demanded absolute excellence from the podium, the discussions, and even the social events. If you didn't bring your very best, you were cut. And he was clear about it. I had the distinct honor of being his co-chair the last years of the meeting. We did a rough draft for the next year's meeting on the last day of the current meeting. The meeting was essentially finished and he'd tweak it for the rest of the year. He was responsible for all of it, financially included. If the meeting made money, the proceeds went to the University of Utah. If the meeting lost money, Bob Burks had to eat it. Highly motivational, but a tremendous risk to him. But it was important to him to honor Dr. Metcalf's name and to establish a chair for the University of Utah, and later, of course, to financially benefit Anna. He was once told by one of the biggest industry CEOs in the business that he would support the Metcalf meeting to the gills if he could get a little more say in who was chosen as faculty. I won't repeat what Burks said to him. But I will say he threatened to ban the CEO and his company from the Metcalf meeting for life, a lifetime ban to an industry CEO if he ever suggested it again. He never did. Bob has served Anna on our board and on our executive committee, and he's been the clearest voice of academic integrity in my history with Anna. He puts everything he has into everything he does, sometimes at great personal cost. He's been an incredible example to me in how to lead the right way, how to keep this life into perspective, and what it truly means to climb the ladder. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please join me in congratulating Jeff Abrams and Bob Burks in receiving the Anna Distinguished Awards for 2024. And gentlemen, if you guys could please join me on stage, as well as Karen Burks and Kathleen Abrams, please join me. Well, hustle it up now. We got stuff to do. You know the Metcalf pace. We got to go. We got to be on time. Let's go. I don't know if you noticed this, but when Jeffrey gave his presidential address, one of the biggest highlights for me is that he brought his wife up on stage, and she is, as you know, the queen of selfies. She took a big selfie of all of us and the audience, so I just had asked her if she wouldn't mind doing that again for our group here today. So, Kathleen, if you'd do the honors. Taking a big selfie of us, with you guys in the background. Everybody get with her. She has to be on the left. We should have worked this out. It was a surprise. All right. You got to smile back there. Awesome, thank you. We have you guys' awards right here. Jeffrey Abrams. Congratulations. Thank you. And Berksy, where's he at? Berks said, we can't take a selfie because your head's too big in blocking the view of the crowd. Congratulations. Thank you guys for your service in the past. Thank you all very much. Ladies and gentlemen, Jeff Abrams and Kathleen, Bob Berks and Karen. Well done. Can we get one picture? One picture? You want us? No, no, no. We want you. I don't really care about the other two. Once again, thank you guys so very much. I really appreciate it. Thank you, sir. May I have another? Well now we come to the highest award that Anna gives as a society. One of the greatest honors I have ever received in my life was to be asked to write a letter on behalf of Steve Burkhart in his support of his nomination as a Mayo Clinic Distinguished Graduate. I haven't been at Mayo long. Steve was a resident there. There have been exactly two orthopedic surgeons in history who've been distinguished as becoming a Mayo Distinguished Graduate. Now he was an absolute lock for the award, but I wanted to approach this letter with everything I had because again, not many orthopedists have ever received this, and I wanted the Mayo to understand what the Anna folks have understood for decades. I would like to read an excerpt from that letter as it sums up what I think Steve's contributions to Anna and to me personally have meant these many years. William Mayo once said, it's a great thing to make scientific discoveries of rare value, but it's an even greater thing to be willing to share these discoveries and encourage other workers in the same field of scientific research. I've been fortunate to have benefited from many of Steve's scientific discoveries of rare value and perhaps can provide some context on the impact of what these have meant to a generation of surgeons that he continues to inspire. It might be helpful for you to know that I was not Steve's fellow and never trained directly under him. My first 15 years of practice was as an active duty military surgeon, and Steve did not know who I was. This is important, and I state this up front because when I speak of his impact, I am every person's experience. I have no special tie to him that bonds this. My story about his influence is the story of all of us in the military and outside. I had no unique relationship with him during those years that would have made me specially inclined to his influence, and yet I can think of no single person who has had a greater impact on military orthopedic surgery than Steve Burkhardt in the last 20 years. Let me explain. After my first deployment to Afghanistan in August of 2001, I was invited by the Surgeon's General to attend a summit and share lessons, and the big theme of the lessons were operational readiness. How do you keep the active fighter on the battlefield? That was the defining question for our career. We didn't want warriors leaving the battlefield. How do you figure out how to keep them there? And the lessons that we brought back were somewhat unexpected by our leadership and set the course for my military career. What we learned was that our largest barrier to operational readiness wasn't the blast injury or the improvised explosive device that my colleagues and I treated in theater. It was the so-called sports medicine injury that occurs to a young athletic population in training, especially for military missions. For example, the number of arthroscopic shoulder surgeries done in the U.S. military personnel between the years 2005 and 2009 was nearly 40,000. Now, these numbers are orders of magnitude higher than their blast injury counterparts. But from a readiness perspective, the impact is exactly the same, a soldier lost to the fight for a minimum of nine months to a year. And if that case didn't go well or the surgery failed, the soldier was most likely and almost certainly medically separated and lost to the fight permanently. And when you look at readiness from that macro perspective, then what you do and what I do and what Steve taught us to do is the whole game in keeping an active soldier and an active fighting force on the field. What does this have to do with Steve Burkhart? Well, shoulder arthroscopy has revolutionized the care of these soldiers. Their access to qualified care, their improvement in patient-reported outcomes and return to duty has markedly improved over the last 20 years. It is no exaggeration that this is in large part due to Steve. He taught us how to transition to minimally invasive surgery and to treat these pathologies with an arthroscope, which was a major transition and improvement from open surgery. This was not simply an innovative, iterative technical advance, it was a revolution. When Steve began using the arthroscope in the shoulder, normal anatomy wasn't even defined. We didn't even know what we were looking at. Steve was one of the first true pioneers who taught us what normal looked like from the inside out. He taught us how to recognize pathology and how to restore it to normal. His technical advances in suture anchors and instrumentations made the surgery possible and reproducible for the masses. In fact, if you've had a shoulder fixed in the U.S. military in the last 20 years, there is a far better than even chance that your shoulder has one of Steve's anchor designs, that your surgeon used one of his instruments, or that they read or watched one of his techniques to successfully perform the operation. I am humbled to think of the careers he has saved, the missions he has enabled, and the lives he has impacted in just this one example by showing us what is possible and then giving us the tools to allow us to accomplish that mission. Now, this example, however, doesn't do justice to just how big an impact his work has had. I speak of the military population as this was where I lived. But it was just as true in civilians who benefited from these fundamental advances around the world. Further, I speak of the shoulder here, but the principles, techniques, and products that he developed in the shoulder were quickly adapted to all other joints. Even in retirement, his legacy advances in a ripple effect where his techniques, innovations, and publications teach the next generation of surgeons and deeply impact the next generation of patients. I mentioned that this impact represents a slice of his influence on those who have never met him, but then I did, and it has profoundly changed me as a surgeon. The principles he lives by are perhaps his greatest legacy. I remember one of the first times I was asked to perform a cavitaveric surgical demonstration at an ANA meeting. I was tremendously honored to be there. I asked the organizers if they could open up the lab an hour early because I wanted to go in and prepare. Right? I'm thinking, this is how you do it. They totally agreed. There wasn't even any backlash from it because when I walked in, there was already one table going. Steve Burkhart was in the room. Now, listen, he was already the world's most famous and advanced arthroscopist, and yet an hour and a half before a simple lab for him to be started, he was in there making sure everything was perfect and his technique was sound. I learned a lot and a good bit about what excellence meant that day. What is often missed about Steve and all the patents, all the papers, all the techniques is the philosophy that has driven all of it. To discover this, you got to understand his true upbringing in Taylor, Texas. And to do this, you must read his Cowboy Trilogy, which I consider to be the greatest contribution to the literature in shoulder education from an arthroscopy standpoint. This three-part series has won worldwide acclaim given the Medical Book Award first prize in orthopedics and rheumatology as well as high commendation by the British Medical Association. The books are unique in that they illustrate the lessons of arthroscopic shoulder surgery within the framework and life lessons learned by cowboys on the ranch. If you want to understand how Burkhart became Burkhart, it lives here. Wisdom such as, don't go where the path may lead, go instead where there's not a path and leave a trail. Or nobody ever drowned in his own sweat. Or a man who looks for easy work goes to bed tired. Or there's an easy way and there's a cowboy way. In these important adages, it's important not to lose the wisdom and the wit. For in them, there are deep life lessons for the blueprint for a career of significance. The more you get to know Steve, the more you realize that his genius lies more deeply in his principles than even in his intellect. Steve has left a lasting legacy on ANA including a long record of service to our board of directors culminating in president in 2002-2003. In his honor, ANA has established the Steven S. Burkhart Shoulder Innovation Research Award given to the best paper at our annual meeting. Further, Steve was named as the inaugural speaker of the annual ANA Innovation Lecture for ANA Specialty Day. Innovation is the lifeblood of ANA and Steve Burkhart has been the leading innovator of our time. True to his roots, his innovations were inspired to improve the patient care and heal the sick motto of the Mayo Clinic. His research has advanced the science and validated those innovations. His publishing has shared the knowledge with a generation of surgeons and perhaps most importantly, he's done it all by living based on a set of principles that if aspired to guarantee a life and career of deep impact and distinction. I know of no one more worthy of the honor of ANA's Lifetime Achievement Award than Steve Burkhart and I'm humbled and honored to bestow it on him today. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome Steve Burkhart to the stage and his wife Nora to accept our highest award. Thank you. Thank you for the example, sir. I have a little something. I'll hold it over here if you have a few words, okay? Maybe we'll take a picture with it real quick. We'll get the picture of it real fast. Perfect. I'm going to sit down. Well, please have a seat. Thank you, JT and members of ANA for this incredible honor. When I was first notified that I would receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from ANA, I suspected that it might represent a case of mistaken identity, but I decided not to investigate that possibility too thoroughly and here we are today. Nobody accomplishes anything in a vacuum. The encouragement and support of family and friends and colleagues is essential. So there are lots of folks I need to thank for the support along the way. I'm grateful to Dr. Gary Paling who, as editor of the Arthroscopy Journal, was willing to publish my work at a time when mainstream journals would not even look at it. I'm grateful to Dr. Landy Johnson for providing a real-life example of how to boldly and successfully go against the grain of conventional wisdom and surgical dogma in a logical and principled way. I'm grateful to my two best friends, Dr. Steve Snyder, Dr. Jim Esch, the other two members of the Three Amigos, as we were called, for their upbeat and unwavering support and encouragement over the years and their willingness to share the slings and arrows that were constantly being directed at us by the opponents of shoulder arthroscopy. I'm grateful to my family, many of whom have made the long trip to Boston from Texas for this presentation. My son, Dr. Zach Burkhart, for whom I have so much respect, and his family are all here today. My posse is sitting right over there. But most of all, I'm grateful to my lovely wife, Nora, for her patience, her understanding, and her willingness to participate in this wild journey with me over the long haul. The mutual faith that we had in each other was the bedrock that kept me on course. Speaking of faith, I want to emphasize the importance of faith in achieving our goals. Faith in family, faith in friends, faith in one's own abilities and judgment, but most of all, a faith in God as a source of all our goals and our achievements. Again, I have Nora to thank for the renewal of my faith. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have participated in the paradigm shift from open shoulder surgery to arthroscopic shoulder surgery. This paradigm shift did not occur as a result of a massive surgical experiment that somehow worked out. Instead, it was the result of a thoughtful, ethical, and logical progression of surgical techniques and instrumentation guided by sound scientific principles and research. Immersed in this new world of minimally invasive surgery, I was constantly excited and inspired to be at the edge of what was possible. In like manner, I encourage you, the current and future leaders of arthroscopy, to always stay at the edge of what's possible as long as you're doing it ethically and responsibly. I always thought that it was important for me to retire when I was at the top of my game while I was in control of the circumstances of my retirement. Fortunately, I was able to do this, and now Nora and I are living on our ranch about an hour's drive from San Antonio. People ask me exactly where Cloud Nine Ranch is located, and I tell them that it's just a little bit to the dry side of heaven where you can see mile after mile of nothing but mile after mile. We live a different life from that of the busy surgeon, a peaceful life, but it's a wonderful life and a beautiful setting. I dare say that it's just about perfect, and perfect is good enough. Happy trails. Almost did it, did it the whole month, week without getting there, so there you go. Gosh, thanks so much for your attention on that, that means a lot to this organization. We're now going to move right in to some of the awards that Anna gives, and I'd like to introduce Dr. Josh Szabo. He awards one of the other top awards in this entire organization, and that is named in honor of Steve Snyder, so Josh, I'm going to turn it over to you, my friend, and get out of your way. Good afternoon. It's my privilege to present the Steve and Jay Snyder Excellence in Education Award to Bill Ciccone. Thank you. You may know this, but the Snyder Award is given to the most outstanding clinical instructor. That's what we do. That's our DNA. There's no bigger award that we give. I'd like to invite now John Dickens to join me on stage to present the Research Award. John is our chair of research and is a phenomenal researcher in his own right. He understands what it takes to make good papers and good projects, so I'm going to turn it over to you, John. Thank you. All right, well, it's a distinct pleasure to be able to present a number of different research awards, and I think this really shows the strength of Anna and the research that goes on here. So the first research award that we'd like to present is the Stephen Burkhart Shoulder Innovation Award. This goes to the best overall shoulder paper. This award is presented to Dr. Mustafa Rashid for the paper Arthroscopic Distal Tibia Allograft with Endopuntin Fixation for Anterior Shoulder Instability. The next award is awarded to the Richard O'Connor Research Award. This is the top overall research paper at the Anna 2024 meeting. This award is presented to Dr. Shaquille Charles for the paper To Rim Plissage or Not Rim Plissage, and the Pittsburgh Instability score, PIT score, predicts failure. Shaquille. All right, and the next award is the Patella-Femoral Anatomy Research Excellence Award. The recipient of this award is Hiro Triana for the paper Clinical Outcomes and Return to Sport Rates in OCA and ACI for Articular Cartilage Lesions in the Patella-Femoral Joint. And the final award is the Jay Witt Ewing Resident Fellow Award. This award goes to the top paper submitted by a resident or fellow. This year's award is Dr. Joseph Brinkman for the paper Bicep Smash Augmentation for Rotator Cuff Repair Histological Analysis of Tenosyte Viability. This concludes the presentations for the research award. A big hand to all of our research award papers. Thank you. Good evening. I have very much the honor of presenting the Anna Diversity Research Award. This is for Arthrostopic Subacromial Balloon Spacer for Massive Irreparable Rotator Cuff Repairs, eight-year follow-up. Arman Kamish. Congratulations. Congrats. Keep it moving. All righty. I'm going to be presenting the DocMatter Engagement Award. For those of you who do not know, the DocMatter Engagement Award recognizes the Anna member whose contributions to discussions on the Anna DocMatter platform have generated the most engagement in 2023. This year, it's my honor that this award is presented to my good friend, Dr. Lee Pace. Please make your way to the stage. Ladies and gentlemen, next, we get to introduce our special award, the Traveling Fellowship Award. This award is led by, of course, the Traveling Fellowship Godfather, who really needs no other introduction, but we'd like to take an opportunity to recognize some of Anna's best and brightest. Please welcome to the stage the 2024 Godfather, Dr. J.W. Thomas Bird, to give the Traveling Fellowship Report. Sir, welcome to the podium. Thank you very much. To try to share with you all the remarkable things that have happened in the last couple of weeks and a couple of minutes really can't be done. I'll just say it was great and sit down, but I'll make a stab at it. We started our journey in Columbia at the Missouri Orthopedic Institute. Clayton Nully was our host with his wingman, Steve DeFroda. We also got to work with a couple of their dedicated shoulder surgeons, Matt Smith and Mike Kim. Richard Ma also weighed in. One thing we noticed, the culture there is really remarkable, and that's a credit to their chairman, Dr. Stannard, and what he's established. The main thing out of Missouri that we saw were really the remarkable cutting-edge work they're doing in allografts of all sorts. That's spearheaded by Dr. Jim Cook, who's actually a veterinarian who leads the research, but also scrubs in surgery and helps them with the allografts that they're doing. We thought we'd hit the highlight of the journey right off the bat when we arrived in Columbia. They had a big sign on the jumbotron welcoming the Anna Fellows at the football stadium. We thought, well, it can't get any better than that. We then moved on to Philadelphia, where they have the oldest medical school in the country, University of Pennsylvania, where we were hosted by John Kelly, our second vice president. We also worked in surgery with his partners, Jim Carey and Brian Sinnott. We toured their research facility, and if I've got the numbers correct, I think they have about $20 million of research going on on an annual basis, the depth and breadth of which is beyond anything I could start to share with you here. Now we thought the jumbotron was a big deal, but that's until John D. Kelly IV hosted us to a private dinner at his family's restaurant, Kelly's Logan House, which opened in 1864 and has been run by four generations of Kellys. That's us standing in front of the portrait of John D. Kelly I. Then we came on to Boston, where we were actually hosted by two institutions, New England Baptist Hospital and Tufts University, which gave us an exposure to a broad range of all sorts of surgical procedures. New England Baptist was spearheaded by Alan Curtis, our first vice president, and Tufts was headed by Matt Salzer, I always get his name wrong, as well as we also got to work with some of their dedicated shoulder surgeons there, Andrew Jawa and Aaron Ramapa. We were treated very well everywhere we went, and in Boston, I think Tom Wurz did some of the heavy lifting on coordinating things for us. We also spent a day in surgery with Tom Gill, but it was a remarkable experience to sort of wrap up the visit. Now for me, on a personal basis, this is a very special experience, and I hate to think what I would have, not knowing what I would have missed if I hadn't accepted this assignment, and yes, the hosts were fabulous, but it's these four individuals that I got to spend the last two weeks with that made it very special for me. Yes, they look great on paper, that's part of what gets them the fellowship, but however good they look on paper, they're even better as people, and it was really special to get to know them. I'm excited about the idea of trying to nurture these people to be more ANNA folks and get more involved, because this is our future leadership, and certainly the well's not dry, there are other remarkable folks out there that can follow and enjoy this experience, but this is really a big part of what sets ANNA apart, the legacy that keeps us going looking in the future, very much on the comments that were made prior to our president's speech earlier today, but with that, I'm going to stop, and I want to introduce you to these special folks, because I think I've got some plaques to give them, is that ... We'll go with ladies first, we'll start with Giovanna Medina from here in Boston at MGH. We'll have you stay up here for ... All right, see who I see next, I see Louis Shee from the University of Chicago ... All right, I see Daniel Song, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Song from Fort Carson, Colorado Springs, Colorado, soon to be at Walter Reed ... Then we have Robert Parisian from New York ... We'll gather them together and get a picture, if we have our president join ... One more piece of hardware is to recognize Thomas and the outstanding leadership and mentorship that he's started. These relationships begin on this, but they last a lifetime, and I can think of no better mentor to be on the road with than J.W. Thomas Byrd. Thank you, sir, so much. Thank you, sir. I was going to give you a bottle of Motrin, but they wanted the plaque instead. Both are good. Be happy to be in one. I'll come in and ruin it for everybody. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations to all of you. Now get ready to get put to work by Anna. Here we go. There's no shortage of work to be done at Anna, and I especially appreciate the hard work and volunteerism of the Anna Committee chairs. The way we're set up, there's a board of directors, but the real work gets done by people who lead our committees in education and advocacy and surgical skills and membership and the development committee and a bunch of others that help Anna get actual work done in this regard. There are a number of those committees that roll over every two years. It's a great opportunity for people to come in, make distinction, and then move along to either bigger roles and allow other people to be able to step into those. We have several of these committee chairs that are outgoing. So I'd ask you to just please join me in thanking a few of them as if they'll come to the stage, and that includes Dr. Laura Albertson, Dr. Kevin Plancher, and Dr. Mike O'Brien. Please join us up on stage. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the life's blood of how it gets done at Anna, and I'd just like to thank you guys so much for your continued work. We're, of course, not done with you. The work isn't over. It's just going to shift forms. Congratulations. And I got a little plaque for you, too. Congratulations, my friend. Thanks, man. Look at this. It's great. Here you go. Come on over here. We have to take a little picture. I'm going to stand in the middle. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. Well, now is kind of a cool time in the program because, as you know, leadership moves on. They're certainly going to kick my tail out of here pretty quick. And as you may remember, early in the week, we gathered together and conducted the nominating committee. They had their meeting to fill in all of the upcoming board positions. And so the leader of that committee is our first past or immediate past president, Jim Stone. And it is my great honor to bring back Jim Stone to the podium to announce the slate of officers for the 2024 nominating committee selections. Jim, welcome back to the podium, sir. Thank you. Mr. President. Thank you. Do we have a slide? First, I'd like to thank the members of the nominating committee. We had our meeting yesterday, and I promise you it's an incredible experience, a very thoughtful discussion that we have in determining the future leadership of ANA. And the difficulty was how many incredibly qualified people we have in leadership in ANA. And we're blessed in that regard. And I think you'll see from the nominating committee results exactly how blessed we are. Whoops. I'd like to, can we go back there? I didn't know it was up already. Can they go back a slide? Okay. Okay, you're getting it. So the members of the nominating committee this year were Mark Gettleman, our past president, Brian Cole, and John Kelly, and then Jimmy Bailey, Julie Dodds, Bill Saccone, and Brian Waterman. So I thank you very much. Our second vice president is going to be Kevin Bonner. And so Kevin moves into the presidential line. Joe Toro, who has been secretary for the last two years, will have a third term as secretary. Our treasurer is going to be Jason Dragoo. Jason. Then the two director at large terms, the three-year terms, go to very deserving individuals. Laura Alberton, who you just saw up here, and Michael O'Brien. And then as Jason Dragoo is vacating his position on the board of directors where he had one more year to go, we have a one-year term that was awarded to Aaron Critch. Again, a very deserving young member and a great guy. So congratulations to all, and I think everybody will agree that Ann is in great hands. Thank you. This concludes the award session as well as the nominating committee cleanup. The next session should begin promptly at 4 p.m. Thank you very much for your attendance, and let's keep getting after it.

diversity session

orthopedic surgery

importance of diversity

family support

mentorship

representation of women

representation of minorities

resilience

support systems

success in orthopedic surgery

leadership in orthopedic surgery