Trio Honored for Leadership, Commitment to Orthopedics

One works closely with young surgeons. Another dedicates his life to clubfooted children, while a third spends his time training and mentoring women and international physicians.

All three men—orthopedic surgeons in various disciplines scattered throughout the North American continent—were honored this week for their leadership, community service and most importantly, their commitment to the orthopedic profession. The trio received awards during the first half of the ceremonial meeting at this year’s American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) event in San Francisco, Calif.

The first to receive his honor was Vernon T. Tolo, M.D., of Los Angeles, Calif. He was given the 2012 William W. Tipton Leadership Award for fostering leadership skills among younger AAOS members while encouraging diversity within orthopedics. He also has been an advocate for unity between specialties in the hopes of “strengthening the voices of orthopedics as a whole,” according to John P. Dormans, M.D., who nominated Tolo for the award. “Dr. Tolo has always enthusiastically accepted the role of leader throughout his orthopedic career,” he said.

Tolo has served as president of three orthopedic societies: The Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America (POSNA) (1994-1995); the Scoliosis Research Society (1995-1996); and the AAOS, (2002-2003). He currently is editor-in-chief of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (American volume) and serves as a professor at the University of Southern California where he received the USC Resident Teaching Award in 1990 and the Professor of the Year Award in 2000. He is the former chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Orthopaedics. In 2009, POSNA awarded Tolo its Distinguished Achievement Award.

While president of AAOS, Tolo launched the Leadership Fellows Program (LFP), a one-year program designed to mentor young participating surgeons while stressing the importance of extending orthopaedic services through advocacy and education.

“The LFP has been more successful than I ever imagined,” said Tolo. “These young physicians have gone on to be leaders in the academy and within their communities. They also have kept in very close touch with one another over many years.”

Tolo grew up in North Dakota. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and received his general surgery and orthopaedic surgery training at Johns Hopkins. He served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps for two years and completed a pediatric orthopaedic fellowship at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. He was the chief of pediatric orthopaedics at Johns Hopkins for 10 years before moving to Los Angeles in 1987 to become the John C. Wilson Jr. Professor and the first full-time pediatric orthopaedic surgeon at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA). He built a faculty group and fellowship there, and fostered strong relationships within the community that helped to create and secure funding for the Children’s Orthopaedic Center at CHLA. He currently is the Chief Emeritus of the Children’s Orthopaedic Center.

The second award was given to Shafique P. Pirani, M.D., of British Columbia, Canada. He received the 2012 Humanitarian Award for his efforts to eradicate clubfoot in Ugandan children. Pirani established the Ugandan Sustainable Clubfoot Care Project (USCCP), a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing widespread disability and poverty from neglected clubfoot.

The USCCP has helped teach and institutionalize the nonsurgical Ponseti Method of treatment throughout Uganda’s health and higher educational systems. Today, there are 40 clubfoot clinics and more than 4,000 health care professionals and students trained in the Ponseti Method in Uganda. Over the past 15 years, more than 3,000 children have been successfully treated. Pirani regularly returns to Uganda to evaluate the outcomes of the program and he also presents the “Ugandan Model” of Ponseti clubfoot care in other under resourced countries and jurisdictions. Recently, the World Health Organization recognized the success of USCCP and recommended its model as a way of helping the disabled worldwide.

Pirani’s colleagues have called him a down-to-earth “driven researcher” who treats everyone the same. Clearly humbled by the honor, Pirani’s acceptance speech was short—he thanked his wife, children, parents and siblings, and told the audience he was “very touched” by the tribute.

In 1972, when Pirani was 15, he and his family were forced to leave Uganda by the country’s dictator, Idi Amin. They moved to England, where Pirani became a doctor. He later moved to Canada where he completed his residency in orthopaedic surgery and fellowship in pediatric orthopaedics, joined the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of British Columbia, and began a successful practice specializing in pediatric orthopaedics, and specifically, the treatment of clubfoot at the Royal Columbian Hospital in Vancouver.

In 1998, Pirani returned to his native country on a social visit. While there, he met with Norgrove Penny, M.D., a Canadian orthopaedic surgeon who was working in Uganda treating disabled children. Penny told Pirani about the plight of Ugandan children with clubfoot and the shortage of doctors there to treat the condition. Pirani and Penny communicated over the next year via email, and formulated a strategy to bring Ponseti clubfoot treatment to Uganda. “We had some obstacles that we had to get over,” Pirani recalled. “There were few orthopaedic surgeons. Who was going to do the treatment?”

They decided to train a cadre of nurses and healthcare workers called “orthopaedic officers” to oversee the treatment. Training began in November 1999 at the Mulago Hospital in the city of Kampala with funding from Rotary International and the Canadian International Development Agency. The new officers immediately began treating children with clubfoot with locally made, inexpensive braces and plaster. Pirani and Penny held additional trainings each year, ultimately integrating the program into the country’s health system.

The last honor at Thursday’s ceremonial meeting went to Franklin H. Sim, M.D., of Rochester, Minn. He was given the 2012 Diversity Award for his 40-year commitment to recruiting, training and mentoring women and international physicians in orthopedic surgery.

Since the early 1970s, Sim has averaged eight to 12 residents and one fellow under his direction each year. To date, he has mentored nearly 500 young physicians, including many women who have achieved prominent positions within orthopedics, including Mary O’Connor, M.D., chair of orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Florida, immediate past president of the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHRS) and past chair of the AAOS Women’s Health Issues Advisory Board; and Kristy Weber, M.D., chair of the Division of Orthopaedic Oncology at Johns Hopkins, chair of the AAOS Council on Research Quality, and a recent recipient of the AAOS Kappa Delta Award.

Sim also has regularly hosted visiting international orthopedic surgeons, residents, and fellows over the past four decades through Mayo Clinic’s Visiting Clinicians Program. Surgeons who go through the program return home with improved skills and techniques, and continue to consult Sim with difficult patient cases. The chairs of orthopedic surgical departments in Jordan, Australia, Pakistan, Thailand and other countries throughout the world have received training from Sim, who also leads the sarcoma outreach program— administered through Mayo Clinic Dubai—in the United Arab Emirates.

Sim was born in New Glascow, Nova Scotia. He attended Dalhousie University in Halifax, Novia Scotia, where he received his undergraduate and medical training. He also interned at the university’s Victoria General Hospital. He completed residencies in internal medicine and orthopedic surgery at Mayo Clinic, where he remained throughout his career.

“I’ve seen the impact diversity and inclusion has had on our specialty,” Sim said in accepting the award. “Much progress has been made in recent decades to bring diversity to orthopedics, but a gap still exists. I’m pleased to see our specialty becoming a more global community. But we will only have achieved our goal when we no longer have diversity mandates or awards for diversity.”