I’m going to borrow a line from our financial columnist, Scott Neal, in this issue of MD-UPDATE. On page five Scott writes, “The moral of the story is that it will be very difficult to match the kind of wealth growth we have seen over the past 35 years.”
Substitute “innovations in medicine” for “wealth growth” and how does that make you feel? Think back to 1980. Is it possible that within the next 35 years there will be the innovations in medicine that have occurred since Ronald Reagan was president?
In this, the Sports Medicine and Men’s Health issue, we see the results of advancements in orthopedics, sports medicine, and urology being practiced by Kentucky doctors. I don’t know what was state-of-the-art in orthopedics or urology in 1980. I know that my father had a radical prostatectomy in 1979 that has affected him for the remainder of his life. He’s still with us at 95 years old, so that’s a great outcome. But I know he suffered from the total removal of his prostate, something that might have been avoided in 2015.
The good news today is that all over Kentucky, sports medicine doctors are treating a patient population of high school and collegiate athletes and adults who want to keep playing their games and staying active but need newer joints and repairs to do so. In spite of what you hear, not everyone in Kentucky is overweight and out-of-shape. Partners like the YMCA help all of us make better health choices.
A word about our cover story…
With a team as big as KentuckyOne Health/UofL Sports Medicine, we needed something special. So we chose the “French door” double cover to include as many of the doctors as possible. As is always the case in medicine, some of the doctors were tied up and unavailable for the photoshoot. But our thanks go to all the doctors who helped us bring you their story.
As always, best regards,
Gil Dunn
Publisher, MD-UPDATE
Send your letters to the editor to: jnewton@md-update.com, or (502) 541-2666 mobile Gil Dunn, Publisher: gdunn@md-update.com or (859) 309-0720 phone and fax