Letter from Dr. Cole
Dear Patients and Friends of the Scapula Institute,
I am pleased to inform you that word is getting out–busted shoulder blades need fix’n! It is so rewarding when an orthopaedic surgeon from Los Angeles or Austin send me images of a broken scapula in a patient they wish to fix, “What approach would you use?” or “Can you send me a video of your technique?” or “Here’s what I did, what do you think?”. This is happening much more often now. Likewise, not infrequently, patients access me through our Scapula Institute Website and the message is clear, “I can’t find a surgeon to help me with my scapula fracture,” and their desperation is clear. Additionally, more and more meeting organizers around the world want to know and learn of the work accomplished here in our Lab and Hospital. To focus on this important work, I have limited my acceptance for such gracious invites to a country a quarter—the message is indeed exploding!
In this addition, you will hear about my sharing with the Italian Orthopaedic Trauma Society where I was honored as a presidential guest. But I cannot do this without my team, in fact most of the time it feels to me like they are doing most of the work, and I am so grateful to them. You will meet two new members of this great team in this issue, Maggie and Temi. Not lost upon me however, is that you may be the most important team members of all, because it is your story which advances the mission, as well as your willingness to volunteer and donate to help us advance the ball—Thank You! The stories of restored lives continue to mount, as expressed beautifully in the following excerpt from an email of a surgeon whose daughter I operated on, “What to me though is the most noticeable is that she is brighter, happier and more upbeat in her everyday life. I have my daughter back. I don’t think that I fully understood the toll that the pain was beginning to take on her and the effect that it was having on her life. I shudder to think about what the future had held for her without your help. Thank you so much for all of your help and the effort that went into this. You have righted her course and put her back into life. Her potential is back to being unlimited.”
Praise God for such healing and allowing me to be an instrument along the way.
Peter A. Cole, M.D.
Division Medical Director, HealthPartners Medical Group Orthopaedics Chair, Orthopaedic Department, Regions Hospital
Professor, University of Minnesota