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Kelly Days Program Information Our department has expanded tremendously
since its inception. Postgraduate education in orthopaedic surgery
at Emory University initially began as an outgrowth of the orthopaedic
and trauma practice of Dr. Robert Kelly at Lawson General Army Hospital
and at Grady Memorial Hospital. Started as a division of the Department
of General Surgery, orthopaedic education was directed by Dr. Kelly
from 1947 to 1974. Dr Thomas Whitesides next took the chairmanship
of orthopaedics and began to develop its research arm. Drawing on
his own background in pathology, and reporting his original research
done at Emory, Dr Whitesides became an international expert on the
diagnosis and treatment of compartmental syndromes. An exerpt from Dr Kelly's diary My father's paternal background was in southwest Virginia - farmers, lawyers and teachers. His mother, one of thirteen children of a doctor/storekeeper, was from east Tennessee. She was orphaned while quite young and brought up by an older sister. I was an only child born on October 25, 1912 in Dorchester, Virginia, a mining community no longer existing, but located about a mile from Norton, Virginia. My father was a doctor for a coal mine there at that time. My mother was from Richmond, Virginia of a family of lawyers, farmers and small merchants. For educational advantages for me and for economic advantages for himself and his family, my father moved to Lynchburg, Virginia in 1914. By 1923 he had attained his ambition to become a specialist in Obstetrics and Gynecology, having absented himself from practice on several occasions to take special training considered adequate for the day. He confirmed his practice to obstetrics from about 1921 until his death of "Brights' Disease" (acute nephritis) in 1930. He enjoyed a good personal and professional reputation but his money management was not good and in settlement of is estate - the home representing a value, less effects, of about $30,000.00 was all that was left. Following my mother's death 10 months later, the house was sold for $14,000.00. In 1931 it was considered good fortune, which brought me that much return. I was then completing my second year at Virginia Military Institute and had decided to pursue a medical career. Following my graduation with a BS degree from V.M.I. In 1933, I entered the University of Pennsylvania Medical School the following fall and graduated in 1937 after the prescribed four years. Although I was on the Honor Roll a few times at V.M.I., I ultimately stood in the middle third of my class there and my stand in medical school was at a similar level. During my vacation periods I made my home with a well-to-do aunt, a widow for 25 years after a brief marriage in her fifties. Positive factors in my personal life at that time were my uncle, John A. Kelly, professor of German at Haverford College in Philadelphia and James R. Gilliam, Jr., trust officer of the bank in Lynchburg, managing my small inheritance. During the summer, after my first year in medical school, I worked with Dr. James W. Watts, a neurosurgeon in the laboratory of Dr. I.S. Ravdin, then Research Professor and later Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery. During the summer following my junior year, I worked as a substitute intern at St. Luke's Hospital in New York City. Following graduation from medical school in 1937, I began a two-year rotating internship. Throughout this period my plans were to become an obstetrician as my father had been, but my experience in this field as an intern led late in my internship to thought of general surgery. At this point the desirable residencies in general surgery had been filled. With Dr. Ravdin's help I located what appeared to be an excellent opportunity as resident in orthopaedics on a service in Louisville headed by Dr. W. Barnett Owen, Professor of Orthopaedics and Dr. Arnold Griswold, Professor of Surgery. Though a General Surgeon, Dr. Griswold was tremendously interested in fractures and served as Chief of the Fracture Service. Visiting Chiefs in Orthopaedics rotated on the service to supervise the residents in orthopaedic problems. The first year of my residency was in children's orthopaedics. In deciding upon this residency I had in mind the possibility of serving residencies in a number of other surgical specialties such as Urology, Neurosurgery, Chest Surgery, etc. as preparation for General Surgery. Soon my interest mounted in orthopaedics, and I set aside the foregoing rather impractical approach to General Surgery. Two extrinsic factors hastened this decision. I met, courted and in December 1940, married my wife, Sara Powers. She was the daughter of Allen Powers and Norma Magee. She lived in a then somewhat obscure town in southeast Louisiana called Bogalusa. She had roomed with my cousin while attending Sophie Newcomb College in New Orleans. Secondly, World War II threatened to involve us in which case the Army let it be known that they would need as many young doctors with orthopaedic training as possible, even if such training were incomplete. In April 1941, I received active duty orders from the Army to report to Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, DC. There I was assigned, presumably for a brief period, to the orthopaedic service. The Chief of Surgery was Col. Norman T. Kirk, subsequently named Surgeon General and the Chief of Orthopaedics, Leonard T. Peterson, later an Orthopaedic Consultant assigned to the Surgeon General's office. A long line of newly inducted medical officers, many of whom were civilian orthopaedists of some stature were assigned to our service and it became my task to introduce them - most considerably my senior - into "military orthopaedics" and the socio-administrative mysteries of the life of a doctor in the Army. To care for our expanding forces, a number of new General Hospitals were being established by the Army at various points throughout the country. Certain key individuals entering the Army from civilian practice and slated for assignment to these new institutions were sent to Walter Reed Army Hospital for a period of "Processing" and indoctrination. While at Walter Reed, these individuals were allowed to select from specified groups individuals to fill certain assignments in these new hospitals and at this point I had been at Walter Reed eighteen months and my early transfer could be expected. Dr. Daniel C. Elfin, newly become Col. Elfin, selected me to be his Chief of Orthopaedics at the then organizing Ashford General Hospital to be located at White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, and in another month I was transferred there. At Ashford I served for three and half years as Chief of the Orthopaedic section. Dr. Elkin was Chief of the Surgery Service and my superior. This was the most challenging and professionally the most satisfying period of my life. Early in 1943 combat casualties began to return and soon we had several hundred orthopaedic patients. Throughout my time at Ashford our large orthopaedic census continued. Numbers varied up to 800 and from January 1943 to January 1946, probably average 250-300. During this time, Dr. Elkin, who was on leave of absence as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Emory, began to talk to me about coming to Atlanta to work in the medical school. Dr. Fred G. Hodgson, the then head of Orthopaedics, was of retirement age and ready to be relieved of his responsibilities. This sounded too good an opportunity to decline. Orthopaedic teaching in the School of Medicine had been carried on largely by Dr. Hodgson and Dr. Randolph Smith and consisted principally of a series of lectures. An orthopaedic service functioned at Grady manned by residents rotating through General Surgery. Traumatic conditions were cared for as well as possible and very little attempt was made to take care of elective orthopaedics. Many young doctors returning to civilian life wanted training in orthopaedics and under this pressure the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery, responsible for national minimum standards of training, encouraged me to begin taking residents. We had not expected the responsibilities with which the Veterans Administration now confronted us, for at the national level this organization appealed to medical schools to help them attain a high quality in their medical care activities. Soon I was responsible not only for the Emory, Grady Orthopaedic Services but as for that at the VA as well. A major part of orthopaedics is that involving the care of children. The child is, so to speak, orthopaedically labile(?). Congenital deformities untreated progress to increasingly profound handicaps. The impact of acquired disturbances without adequate management may more or less rapidly become catastrophic. Aggressively and imaginatively managed, these same conditions can be minimized and at times completely corrected. Skeletal growth is never a neutral factor. It works against the inept orthopaedist and for his skilled colleague. Therefore adequate exposure to children's orthopaedics is essential to graduate education - residency training - in this field, not only for the direct value of it, but because certain principles applicable to the entire field are so graphically exemplified in children - indeed may not be grasped without prolonged experience with children. Emory University's clinical material included no organized service in children's orthopaedics. One of the imperatives facing me has constantly been the accumulation of enough such material to provide a proper balance of experience to the fairly large number of orthopaedic residents dictated by the inescapable needs of Grady and VA Hospitals. Much of my time has been devoted to this effort. Early we made prolonged attempts to promote collaboration between the School of Medicine and Scottish Rite Hospital - a fertile source of children's material and an internationally know institution. While these attempts never proved fruitful, another orthopaedic residency program has grown from the nucleus of Scottish Rite and now an exchange affiliation exists so that we accept residents from the Scottish Rite-Baptist Hospital program at each of two of our institutions while sending one of our residents to Scottish Rite for part of his children's work. Meanwhile, we are attempting to expand and strengthen our own clinical material for teaching in children's orthopaedics. Regrettably, the Department of Surgery lacked strong leadership until 1957, since which time and administrative environment has been created which has nurtured progress in all the divisions and has strengthened the entire school and the clinic. Orthopaedics has Thrived at least equally to other divisions. From no associates and five residents in 1960 we have moved to thirteen residents and seven in-clinic associates, one of whom works at Crawford W. Long Hospital and one additional associate working full time at the VA Hospital. Although the number of residents has not increased in proportion to the number of senior staff, the quality of our teaching has improved and year by year more original articles from our services are published in the literature. While we managed one research contribution in 1949, we could mount no further serious attempt until 1959 when Dr. Whitesides began his work on post-ischemic changes in muscle. Dr. deAndrade, trained and experienced in laboratory investigative methods, joined us in 1969, and our development has continued since that time. Since being in Atlanta I have been closely tied down by my work, spending many hours at it each week. At present, I spend an average of about 70 hours in the various aspects of my work including time spent in preparing teaching material and in administration. My wife and family have been tolerant of my neglect, and I have attempted to spend a maximum on non-working time with them. Our oldest child, Robert Patton Kelly III was born June 21, 1942. He attended Westminster School, and a embarrassingly long list of colleges and almost graduated from Emory Business School. He married Mary Frances Cureton of Greenville, South Carolina in December 1966, and our only grandchild, Langhorne Cosby Kelly, was born December 2, 1969. Our second child, Edward Allen Kelly, born April 18, 1945, attended Westminster Schools, Davidson College, Marburg University (Germany - "Junior year abroad" program) and is now about to graduate from Medical School at Columbia University in New York. He is our student. Our daughter, Mary L. Kelly, born July 2, 1949, attended Westminster Schools, Converse College and the University of Georgia from which we anxiously expect her graduation at the end of the 1971 summer quarter. On June 6, 1970 she was married to William Lee Rogers, Jr. of Gainesville, Georgia. Billy graduated from Emory and is now a senior student in the Law School at the University of Georgia. In 1960 the only wealthy Kelly in recorded history faced a childless demise and having willed his estate "in toto" to Emory and Henry College gave his niece and two nephews each about $30,000.00. Fairly promptly I converted most of mine into a farm in Haralson County where our family has and continues to spend many happy times together. We raise nothing. My mother-in-law Mrs. Norma Powers has lived with us since shortly after the death of her husband in 1957. She is alert and active and we enjoy her presence - especially Mrs. Kelly. My accomplishments and honors have been: - Acquiring a good wife - My work on osteomyelitis in World War II for which I was awarded the Legion of Merit. - My appointment in 1946 as Chief of the orthopaedic Division, Emory University School of Medicine. - Serving on the Orthopaedic sub-committee of the National Research Council from 1946 to 1950. This committee was later reconstituted as the Committee on Skeletal Disorders. - Serving a tour as Civilian Orthopaedic Consultant to the U.S. Army in Europe, October-November 1949. Developing the Orthopaedic Division of Emory University School of Medicine, particularly the residency program to its present level. - Authoring or co-authoring original articles in medical literature. - Authoring the section on Musculo-Skeletal Training in the text: Abdominal and Thoracic Trauma (give full and accurate bibliographic reference for book of approximately that title by Martin, Haynes, Stave, Norinth, etc.). My wife and I are members of the Capital City Club and since its founding Trinity Presbyterian Church. I suffered a brief but serious illness in 1964 - heart failure due to high blood pressure. I started back to work ten days later, my blood pressure well controlled by medicine. While my parents and three of my grandparents were short lives, most of my collateral forebears exceeded the Biblical allotment. A great uncle drove a cow from Bristol to Abindon, Virginia, a distance of 15 miles, on his ninetieth birthday. An uncle was chief counsel (attorney) for Tennessee Eastman Company for 16 years beyond 65, the established retirement age. Another uncle remained active in business until 77 and a third actively taught in college until age 69. Neither from the economic or from the domestic tranquility standpoint could I retire in less than 5-10 years and barring unexpected ill health, seven years would be a likely figure for the remainder of my active career. ________________________________________________________________________ Here the account ends. I have typed in just as Daddy wrote it, with the exception of sometimes writing out abbreviations he used (example - Virginia in place of Va.) There are also some words which I could not read, particularly proper names of some of the doctors cited.. I found this interesting reading, and something I feel my children might one day enjoy. Love, Mary |
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