A society built on candid exchange, sustained friendship, and serious work.
Founded in the early 1980s, the Orthopaedic Foot Club is a private society of senior orthopaedic foot and ankle surgeons who meet annually for academic exchange and shared travel.
The Orthopaedic Foot Club was the vision in the early 1980’s of Luke Bordelon, John Gould, Dave Drez, Charles Freeman, and Don Baxter. The purpose of the club was two-fold: academic and travel. The academic part was for its members to present current projects, research, cases, or problems to the membership. From these presentations, club members would discuss methodology, their own experiences with a problem, and suggestions to make a project or paper better. As new members soon learned, you better not have thin skin or try to “BS” the membership. “Give and take” often produced spirited discussions and an incredible learning experience for all who came, and that continues today.
The travel part of the club experience allowed the members to travel to the current president’s hometown and see and experience what the president and his or her significant other felt was important in their region of the country where they live, work, and played. Ask Roger Mann or Bill Hamilton if they would have ever come to Craftsbury, Chattanooga, Kalamazoo, Asheville, Biloxi, and other such places if it were not for the club. The only club meeting celebrated outside of the mainland USA was in St. Johns for the 10th anniversary, with the majority of club members attending. It was hosted by Rick Elkus, whose wife Carol made most, if not all, the arrangements, and was an outstanding didactic experience but an even better adventure.
The strength of the Orthopaedic Foot Club has come from its by-laws, which were primarily penned by Luke Bordelon. His “Jefferson vision” was for the club to constantly evolve, retain only the interested, visualize a part of the country differently in the eyes of the president, and to talk about ideas that were several years away from publication. He felt that if a member couldn’t make a meeting once every three years, he probably was not interested. If he aged up and slowed down, he could be a senior member. There would always be opportunity for new blood.
At the Asheville meeting, President Bill Callison activated the Honorary Member clause of our by-laws. Roger Mann was invited to the meeting for President Callison to bestow the first honorary Orthopaedic Foot Club membership. The club had come of age and was self-assured enough to invite the world’s leading orthopaedic foot and ankle surgeon as its first honorary member.
Through the years since the early 1980s, the club has provided incredible memories, camaraderie, academic discussions, lasting friendships, important helpful contacts, and love. If asked, there is not much one member wouldn’t do for another.