Recording - 08-19-2023 13:41:30

00:03 This is Mark Swiontkowski coming to you from the annual meeting of the 20th Century Orthopedic Association. And we're recording some oral histories of some of the key members of this organization, some of the giants of the field, and some of the real characters I would add as well. And it's my pleasure to be speaking with Dr. John Richmond, my friend and colleague, a giant of his own, although much smaller than the person he's going to talk about, also in the field of sports medicine. So, John, why don't you tell us about Jack McGinney?

00:39 Well, thank you, Mark, and it's certainly a pleasure to have the opportunity to chat up about Jack at any time. He was just a unique personality. I had the privilege of getting to know him when I was a resident, rotated with him for six months. So I spent a lot of time with him. And at that time, he was one of the pioneers in arthroscopic surgery. Jack had a very high intellect, but you'd never know it based on his outgoing, sort of Irish comedic delivery on everything he did. But he grew up in the Boston area, in the city. He was the son of a single mom, went to Boston Latin School, which was sort of the premier public school for the best academic people, went from there to Harvard, went from Harvard to Tufts Medical School, which is. He was on the faculty at Tufts for a very long time.

01:44 As were you.

01:45 As was I. I was a Tufts resident and he was Tufts faculty. He was a full clinical professor at the time that I was with him. And then he did his residency two years in general surgery at Yale, then three and a half years, four years at Harvard. And then he went into the military for four years and served honorably in the military, and then came back to the Boston area, to Newton Wellesley Hospital, which is a very good community hospital. And he was chairman of the orthopedic department for a long period of time. And that's when I got to know him. And he was one of the at that time, he was one of the founding members of the Arthroscopy Association. So arthroscopy was brand new. He saw instantly the value of what you could do with it, both with diagnosis at the first go around and then you could learn the skill set to be able to do not just loose body removals, but meniscectomies and other surgical techniques. So he was the first president, Anna, which split off from the International Arthroscopy Association. He was president for two years. And so he was a great mentor. I got to Know him well then and had the opportunity to do a number of things with him through the decade since.

03:11 Yeah. So he also was the president of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. Isn't that the case?

03:17 That's the case. He was the president, yeah.

03:19 And as a very young member of the organization, I remember that this was the hot discussion was about time, limited certificates. At the time, people who passed their boards were lifelong members or lifelong holders of certificates from the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery. And then the notion came up that this probably wasn't going to protect the public as best as possible. And I can remember the great debates that were going on and the. There was loggerheads between the Academy and American Board of Orthopedic Surgery. And I just remember him standing up in the front of the room at the business meeting of the Academy and just said, look, folks, time is passing on. The public expects us to confirm that we're still appropriately able to care for them in a way that's ethical and effective. And the vote passed. And the tenor of the discussions at the time made that seem impossible. And he was so respected that he changed the whole discussion and it passed.

04:30 I think one of the reasons for that is he saw how much practice had changed in his lifetime. Arthroscopy didn't exist. ACL surgery didn't really exist. There was just a number of things that he had to learn after residency. And if you didn't require people to re up their education, they weren't going to be current. They weren't going to be doing the right thing for their patients.

04:59 Yeah, very ethical guy. But we said earlier in the conversation he was a character, so maybe you could flesh some of those ideas out.

05:08 I'll bounce one of them back at you. Your remembrance of him at the 20th century meeting that you hosted when we all ended up him and his older son John.

05:20 That's right.

05:22 It would have been Jack iii, I think, but his younger son, he ended up in an Irish pub or a pub. It became an Irish pub that night because the two of them sang Irish ballads for hours.

05:37 Yeah, it was about an hour and a half. And they had a wonderful time together. And everybody in the organization participated. It was. And it was a small setting, but there was at least 100 plus people singing Irish tunes. And the other thing about Jack, of course, was a good joke. He always had a joke. And I don't think I can appropriately repeat the one I remember the most, but it was about a priest from a small town in Iowa. And there was many, many jokes that Jack had, but he loved people. I can remember towards the end of his time on Earth, at meetings, motoring around in his electric scooter, sharing remembrances and jokes and stories with people at various tables and always entertaining.

06:31 Absolutely, absolutely. I'll share a couple of stories of him. One time I was at the academy when Bill McCausland, who preceded Jack by four years or so as part of President of the Academy. I was a resident rotating with Bill at that time. So I got invited to every presidential thing. And I remember at about midnight one night having to boost him, who was President of the Academy. Jack, who was soon to be President of the Academy, over a 6ft tall chain link fence so they could go from one cocktail party to the next cocktail party and not miss any of it. And I got him down safely, no distal radius wrap. Nobody broke anything and nobody got hung up on the chain link. And so there wasn't any barbed wire, but it was still interesting. And the other story that his son John told me, John, I operated on his son John and we became pretty good friends as well. And his son related to me as a story, when he was president, the Academy meeting was in New Orleans. And he was out after midnight the day, the evening before his presidential address. And his son said, well, and he was out with his kids. He had two marriages. And so he's out with his kids from the first marriage and his current wife and just having a wonderful time and enjoying the ambiance and the, the music of New Orleans. And his son said, well, don't you think, you know, you need to get some sleep? And he says, no, I'll get all the sleep I need when I pass away. So he pushed himself hard to be going all the time and doing fun things and really relating to people all the time.

08:19 Yeah, great, great person. Had a wonderful laugh. It was very loud. You could hear it across the room. You know, when Jack was in the room, it's been so great. Any final thoughts about Jack?

08:34 Just, you know, I think we all learn from mentors and you get them in many forms and shapes, but he was sort of, he filled the room with knowledge, encouragement. He really, if you looked at the residents he trained, he really pushed everybody to. Yeah, to be a good surgeon. So it was great.

08:59 Well, thanks, John, for remembering a great friend and mentor to you, Jack McGinney. A giant, both in his contributions, but also in his interest in really living a full life. I mean, he really did and we're pleased he's getting the rest he so.

09:20 Well earned, finally catching up.

09:22 That's right. Thanks, John

09:24 Thank you, Mark.