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| Four knee replacements, two hips and about one dozen other surgeries |
In the summer of 1961 I had surgery to remove two torn meniscus from my right knee due to some football injuries. Two years later I had the same surgery on the left knee. My friend, Bob Katz, had similar surgeries about the same time. Before we turned 21 neither of us had any cushioning between the femur and tibula. Once the bone covering wore off, arthritis was sure to set in. By the time we graduated from college, we both knew that at some point in our lives we would have joint replacements. The questions would be when to do it and what physician to use. It would be 40 more years before these questions would be answered.
It just recently occurred to me that there is no easy way to find these answers. Every year in March the top 64 basketball teams play a single elimination tournament to find out who is the best team. The NFL culminates its championship with the biggest sports spectacular in the world, The Super Bowl.
American Idol, Dancing With The Stars and Big Brother have selection process to pick the top person in their field of endeavor. There are Top Ten C&W songs, places to retire, dividend paying stocks, best seller books and Pulitzer Prize winners. There is the Motor Trend Automobiles of the Year. Fantasy Football leagues rank the players by position.
It seems that you can get some idea of the "Best of the Best" in most every fields of expertise except physicians. How do you really know what doctor to select to perform cataract surgery, repair a torn rotator cuff, treat your gout, perform a root canal, diagnose a pain or, in my case, perform knee replacement surgery?
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