Interdependence is and
ought to be as much
the ideal of man as
self-sufficiency.
- Mahatma Gandhi
“I’m 85 you know, and thinking about slowing down some,” he
said as we chatted on the phone.
The mind is a curious thing, because to me, he had not aged
at all. I had to actually stop to realize
and appreciate that it had 30 years since our first conversation.
"This is Dr. Russell, I’m calling for Ted Dreisinger.”
“This is he,” I replied
“I was given your card by Janet W. I’m looking for someone to help me with a
project and I understand you can write.”
I would have no way of knowing how that phone call would
change everything in my life, and I mean everything.
Looking for a
mechanic…
Garth Samuel Russell was a busy orthopedic surgeon who was
looking for someone to help him write an education book for his patients. While I didn’t know anything about
orthopedics, I had been teaching kinesiology, the study of the anatomy of
movement, so had a little vocabulary.
He wasn’t actually looking for an employee at the time; just
someone to help him put together an informational book for back pain patients
to help them understand things they might encounter both from a surgical and
non-surgical perspective. We made a deal
and the project took about a year and a half to complete.
In the course of that time, I went from a part time writer
to employee, who along with Janet W. put together one of the first outpatient, metric
based spine rehabilitation centers in the world. It was Columbia, Missouri. It
was 1987.
The Columbia Spine Center was unique, in that it was mostly
exercise strengthening and endurance machines, all designed to measure the
progress of patients participating in the non-operative rehabilitation
program. The original facility included
doctor/staff offices, locker room/showers, an X-ray machine and a small work
hardening area. In all, the facility was nearly 10,000 square feet. Because my background had been in cardiac
exercise physiology, we also had a fully equipped EKG treadmill testing system.
Vision AND substance…
I would have had no idea this man was one of the most
politically influential spine surgeons in the American Academy of Orthopedic
Surgery, or that he was connected to, or knew practically every luminary in the
field of spinal surgery. This was Mid-Missouri
after all.
When that first call came, I was teaching at a small university
in Jefferson City, Missouri.
‘The call,’ and subsequent years provided me with an education
and a doorway to a world beyond my imagination.
For nearly a decade, Russell took me to dozens of clinical and
scientific meetings, introducing me as his director of research. He liked the idea of being in private
practice and having his own research person.
None of his private practice colleagues had such an animal. He did, because he could!
Dr. Russell taught me to move with ease in the academic and
clinical orthopedic community. Over the
years I prepared uncounted numbers of talks for him, as we developed a rhythm
of professional content and trust. Simply
traveling with, presenting papers along side and attending functions of his
choice, gave me levels of credibility some work lifetimes to acquire. Attending
clinical and scientific conferences, as well as meeting people that influenced
the field, shortened my learning curve in immeasurable ways.
He also taught me ‘my place,’ meaning that as long as I
stayed in my professional playing field, I would be able to do anything. “You are a PhD, not a Doctor of
Medicine. Act like what you are and
there will be few barriers.” He was
right, and because of his guidance and advice, I have had, by now more than 30
years of the most incredible professional and personal experiences!
He was a visionary, an iconoclast who understood the
importance of acting and making decisions.
He believed in sharing what he knew and learned. He would say, “All the boats rise when the
water does.” He was the first man I met who would listen to an idea and say,
“Why not?” There were few things we
thought about that we did not try.
Slipping into my
mind…
I was thinking about Dr. Russell, because since his first
retirement, he began spending more time in West Palm Beach, Florida. I had occasion this weekend to be in Jupiter,
just a few miles north of his place and thought I might visit with him. It would be a quick 36 hours for me, in
Friday night…an event Saturday evening and out Sunday morning…
As fate would have it, he was in Columbia, Missouri preparing
for a court case testifying as an expert witness, which he had done uncounted
numbers of times in his long, generous and successful career.
“I’m sorry I’ll miss you on this trip,” I said. He agreed and I told him I might try to catch
up with him in Columbia in the next few months.
“That would be nice,” he said.
“I guess, I just wanted to hear your voice and tell you how
I appreciate the career you provided me,” I said.
It isn’t the first time I had told him this, and his open
humbly gentle response was as it has always been, “Ted, you are too kind.”
I thought, as I have every time he as said this, Me? Too kind to you?
I used to say that to him, in some ways robbing him of the
compliment. I don’t do that anymore…sometimes
it is more blessed to receive…
- ted
