Recording – 08-18-2023 21:24:48

00:02 Good evening, this is Mark Swiontkowski speaking to you from Albuquerque where we're having the 20th century orthopedic association annual meeting. And it's indeed my pleasure to have a chance to speak to my friend and colleague, Dr. Lanny Johnson, who has been around this organization for 30, 40 years.

00:26 74, 1974.

00:27 There you go. So Dr. Johnson is a world renowned sports surgeon who has been gifted with many divine interventions which have impacted the care of millions of patients, I will say. And he was fortunate enough to be around this organization when the founders of the organization returning from World War II, established it. So it's my pleasure to just have him speak a little bit about some of the individuals that formed this group and what his memories are and how they influenced his career. So, Lanny, what can you tell us about the people that developed this organization?

01:10 Well, of course, it was Clint Compeer's idea and he got, at the time, I think, six people together. And his motive was that he wanted to be able to have an influence in the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeon Surgeons. We're going to do this, but they're only six. And so like my professor, Fred Reynolds came in maybe a year or so later and then others started joining. But I had the privilege probably to meet, as I looked at the list, a whole lot of the early members. Right. And it was a different culture then, could I tell you? Very different culture. But Clint compere. And I was of course, young, but Clint somehow took a liking to me and I kind of. I liked his style, I should tell you. It was kind of autocratical. We're going to do it this way and that way. And so there were a couple things that happened that influenced us going forward. Normally they had a beer break in the meeting. And so I don't normally drink beer. And so he saw that I wasn't drinking beer and he said, what's wrong? You're not drinking any beer. I said, I just don't care. Well, what would you like? I said, well, I like ice cream. And so that's the way the ice cream and beer thing got started.

02:26 Is that right?

02:26 Yeah. He said, we're going to have ice cream from now on with the beer. Of course, everybody laugh. Yeah. But I now see that people kind of enjoy it. Absolutely.

02:35 Yeah.

02:36 I don't think he was looking for a beer float.

02:38 No, no.

02:39 But that was the thing. And another thing happened. These guys were very competitive. And so the golf outing was a championship United States Open type of thing. And although I was A good golfer, and I enjoyed playing in that kind of a thing. What happened was over a few years, the people that were competing with got smaller and smaller, and so I thought it might be better to have a mixer that would be a. We call it one shot scramble. A scramble?

03:12 Yeah.

03:13 So he said, yeah, okay, well, I'm a scramble. Which was interesting that the things I told him, normally he would have his own ideas about everything, but I think he thought as it kind of wore on, that was probably a good idea. And so now the scramble is something that I think people really enjoy. It's a great mixer and it's really fun, and yet there's some competition to it. Sure.

03:34 We played today and it is indeed fun. So it was Dr. Reynolds that really brought you into this organization?

03:41 Yes, he was my chairman, you know, when I was a resident at Wash U, at Washington U, he was one of the chief surgeon on the Great Britain side on the invasion of Normandy. And he then tells the story. So what happened? The people that lived and they brought back, that were wounded, they treated with a garden hose, washed out the wounds, immobilized them somehow, and put them on an airfac coin back to the United States. Because there were so many, there wasn't an opportunity to have any surgery or close the wound, which you wouldn't do on the open fractures or whatever they had. But that was interesting to me that here we are with this war and I'm the chief surgeon. We're just using the garden hose, right?

04:30 Yeah. Well, you've been so much a part of this organization and still to this day, innovating in terms of symposia and. And giving papers and things like that. One of the real purposes of the organization is to keep everybody up with what's going on in research. And what would you say has happened in the past, I don't know, decade or two?

04:58 That's a concern of mine. The research has really gone down, and I spoke to a couple people about that today and they said, I'm right with you. So there are very few research papers. So maybe tomorrow opportunity presents itself before the committee meets for new members.

05:16 Right.

05:16 I'm going to ask that since. Let's find new members that. Or members that are. Well, first I'm going to ask how many people in this room have a prototype of a device that's ready to go or who have a scientific paper they're working on, may not be finished? And I would say, for instance, I know Mark Swiontkowski has one with tibial plateaus. That he could say something about others, may have some. How many here? I think the number is going to be few.

05:42 Right.

05:43 And so then I want to say, well, now when we start looking for new members, aside from the fact that they got to be younger, let's find people that can make a contribution. Research. Because research is one of the tenets of this organization and it has really gone down. And most people now because of the challenge in medicines of looking, how do we practice better, how do we make more money, how do we fight against this? And I understand that. I'm not against it. But this wasn't a socioeconomic organization. It was one that should be a fellowship in research.

06:13 Right. And it should be balanced. And I know you'll make that point eloquently. So you do not come from an academic background. And I'm sure that I'm just guessing. You'll tell me if this is correct, that you were one of the few early people into the organization that was in private practice. The rest were in academia. Is that accurate?

06:37 Yes, I think that was true. There were a few of the first guys were in private practice. There's a fellow named Ed Hoechler who was a private practice guy in St. Louis. He was one of, I think, the first guys. But most of them were in a university or of course, it wasn't private groups like there are now, you know, but they were universally affiliated. Most of the original guys, my Rhett, Fred Reynolds was chairman at Barnes Hospital, but then Jack Houston was in it, but he ran the Houston Clinic. So these are people that had a dominant position in orthopedics.

07:10 Sure. And I don't think you describe yourself as being somebody that was dominant in the. In the field. You had lots and lots of influence and trained lots and lots of people at the dawn of the age of arthroscopy, for sure. But I don't know that you would ever describe yourself as a power player in the field.

07:32 Let me put it this way. The other thing I should tell you about 20th century was that almost all the early members were president of the Academy. So when my wife and I came to the dinner that is traditional for new members, which happens at the Academy meeting. Yes. And my wife said to me, she said, I really like the pin that the club has. And I said that pin happened to be the past president's pin of the Academy. And so what happened those days, and I think it was my second year in the organization. Walter Hoyt was president of the Academy. It was in Phoenix, west of Phoenix. We had an outing. He said, I want to sit with me on the bus going back. I said, oh, yes, sir. So I sat with one of the bus back and they said, do you want to be president of the Academy? And I said, probably not. He said, well, that's what we thought. Thank you. So the way people in that day were decided president of the academy all came out of 20th century because see, you had to be 40 and not over 50. And so you were young and they would groom you all the way through to be president if you wanted to be. Now what happened later because the academy grew so big that people who became president of the Academy or AOA after that they got into the academy, I mean, to the 20th century. Now we're back to a phase where I see that existing members of 20th century are becoming presidents of the organization. So it's kind of an interesting transition. Had to do with how fast the academy grew. But now I see Clint Compere's intention that this people have leadership roles in the academy has come back to 20th century.

09:18 Pendulum has swung back towards the original design of the founders of the organization.

09:23 Now I have another thought that I'd like to say. Please. We're having a discussion about what the do's ought to be. Okay. And if I get an opportunity tomorrow, I'm going to tell them that I always invest in myself. And I find that this is 20th century is one of the best investments I ever made because it's given me opportunity to share what I'm working on, learn from others about different things that I have no idea about. And even just at this meeting, the opportunity I have with an idea I've got for treating concussions, I've now been given some chances for the National Hockey League because one of our members is the head of the hockey league. I've got tomorrow one of the head doctor for the National Football League. He's going to see my idea. And so then I passed this idea off on a couple other people and they've given me some really good ideas about it that once I couldn't think of. You can't pay for that. And now add that to the fellowships I've had over the year that I visited their home, they visited me. I have friendships. I tried to encourage people, there are friendships here to be extended more than this national meeting. I think maybe I've exhausted that more than others, actually, with you and your wife, the friendships that go beyond the annual meeting. I would hope that people would catch on to that.

10:51 Yeah, I think that's Really a sense that's come forward. Particularly the new members are telling me this. So for people who are listening to this, they may not understand the role that you had in the dawning of the age of arthroscopy and the fact that you were given the gift of the notion of the motorized shaver and created a company that was called Instrument Maker, I believe was the name of your company.

11:19 Yeah, well, actually, Dionics had the patent for the motorized instrument. What happened was, after I did the motorized instrument, I had some other ideas and no company was interested. I thought they were pretty good ideas, so I did them on my own.

11:32 Okay. That's when you invited.

11:34 I formed a company called Instrument. I held it for 20 years and sold it in 2002 to Smith and Nephew.

11:39 Right. So one of the goals of this project is really capturing the oral histories of the organization so that people in the future can. Can understand about this organization and how it's developed and what its purpose is. But maybe you could just run through a brief list of the people in this organization and out of this organization that you taught about arthroscopy and helped to create a fellowship of people who would advance that whole progress not only in the knee, but other joints. So maybe run the list for us.

12:18 Well, I think I can think of two that had a big influence. The first one was James Andrews or Jimmy Andrews, and he was at Houston Clinic, and The very famous Dr. Houston told him that we probably should not get into arthroscopy. It was not a good idea. Andrews thought it would be. So Andrews was in the 20th century. We were both in at that time, new young guys. And so he came up and sat on a ladder, step ladder behind my back with his head right over my head. And he came every six weeks for several weeks to learn how to do arthroscopy. Well, if anybody listening to this knows what impact Jimmy Andrews has. Yes. I mean, he's a brand. In fact, right now he's building hospitals across the country with his name on them. And the other one was kind of fun. I had two patients come from the Pittsburgh Pirates team to me because the team doctor, who was very famous, Dr. Ferguson, thought there was nothing wrong with their knee. And I won't go into the details, but they both came and they had simple torn meniscus or whatever, and I did it arthroscopically and embarrassed Ferguson because they didn't do it there. So within a month, he wanted me back. To his credit. I want to hear Graham Rounds about arthroscopy during that grand rounds, he said, I've got a young Chinese guy. Would you take him for six weeks and teach him arthroscopy? And that was a fellow named Freddie Foo, who then had a huge influence in orthopedics.

13:48 Yeah. Well, that's just. I think two of a very small number of people that I know came to visit you and your work in not only with the knee, but other joints, the hip and the shoulder and the elbow. And you have been very blessed and been given special communications with God to really influence direction and care and invention. And the number of patents you've had have really made a big difference.

14:21 I'm still working on them.

14:22 I know. And for those of you listening, Dr. Johnson has his 90th birthday and two days and is still meeting with the FDA. He had a phone call yesterday. I believe it was with the fda. So he's not done yet.

14:36 Well, my mission's not over.

14:37 Yeah, that's right.

14:39 Probably when I pass away, I'll be surprised because I had a couple other ideas I wanted to work on. That's right.

14:47 It's wonderful. You're an inspiration, and you're a great friend. And thank you for taking the time to just run through these moments of history with the 20th century. And happy birthday to you, Lainey.

14:58 Thank you. My pleasure. Yeah.