Thanks, Mark. So Freddy was a great mentor to me. I did my fellowship with him and then I spent 11 years as his partner in Pittsburgh So it's really with a great honor and a heavy heart that I give this tribute to the dynamic godfather. Dr. Freddy foo He passed away on September 24th 2021 with his family by his side after a brave and hard-fought battle with melanoma He's a claim for his innovative advancements in sports medicine is unstoppable energy Joie de vivre impeccable memory and his magnetic personality Dr. Foo spent his entire life setting the highest bar for his colleagues his apprentices and his patients He prided himself in his on his efficiency and always sought to challenge and advance the current research and the clinical treatments With his larger-than-life aura and his powerful impact on so many people It's really difficult to summarize his accomplishments and his contributions He emanated vehemence for everything that he did he loved his family first and foremost His desk for life was infectious. You cannot help but feel his commitment and love of his family life science Photography people his patients the arts good food great wine Fast cars and flashy clothes. I've never met somebody with a heart so big that he could love so much He's born in Hong Kong in 1950 Dr. Foo played lead guitar in a rock band and was also an all-star point guard on his high school championship basketball team He received his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and then went on to receive his medical degree and complete his orthopedic residency at the University of Pittsburgh He joined the university and his faculty in 1982 became chairman of the orthopedic department in 1998 he served as a beloved head team position for the University of Pittsburgh for 32 years and was routinely seen on the Sidelines even up until a month prior to his death cheering louder than anyone else Dr. Foo was instrumental in bringing sports medicine to Western, Pennsylvania in 1984 he established a first-ever athletic training program and pushed for emergency medical support at all regional high school football games The athletic training program has subsequently grown into being one of the largest in the country and the NATA Gave him the presidential challenge award for his significant contributions in athletic training Dr. Foo continued to cultivate sports medicine in the region helping to design and develop one of the first and the largest comprehensive sports medicine complexes This facility houses indoor and outdoor football training facilities for both the University of Pittsburgh Panthers and the Pittsburgh Steelers It also helped to economically socially Revitalize the surrounding area as part of the complex. He helped to launch the Internationally recognized UPMC concussion program which at the time was a first of its of its kind Dr. Foo also fostered a partnership with the Pittsburgh Penguins to build another similar comprehensive facility that was dedicated to hockey related training injury prevention and treatment Because of his vision UPMC sports medicine has become a premier international program with thousands of top elite professional Olympic and amateur athletes traveling near and far to seek care Dr. Foo was instrumental in aligning community leaders and resources to host the first-ever City of Pittsburgh marathon and was key in bringing the an annual thrift drug classic professional cycling race to Pittsburgh Which featured cyclist Lance Armstrong and Greg Lamont? Dr. Foo adored the arts and he was a company physician for the Pittsburgh Ballet for 37 years Where he launched the first dance medicine focus sports medicine program in the country Because of his commitment and his enormous impact to the city Pittsburgh magazine named him one of the 100 most influential Pittsburghers of the 20th century and the Pittsburgh City Council declared September 13th as Dr. Freddy Foo Day Dr. Foo led the revolution in ACL reconstruction and was identified as a most cited ACL author in 2019 by the Orthopedic Journal of Sports Medicine His academic accolades and contributions to sports medicine are immense Dr. Foo served at the highest levels of leadership for the most prestigious national and international orthopedic and sports medicine societies throughout his career including AOSSM Issacoss and the president of the Pennsylvania Orthopedic Society He also held board positions at ORAF, AOSSM, ANA, AOA and the International Cartilage Repair Society to name a few During his career. He was recognized with more than 260 professional awards and honors including induction into AOSSM's Hall of Fame for building one of the most diverse orthopedic programs in the country. Dr. Foo also received the 2011 AOS Diversity Award More than 1,500 residents and fellows from 62 countries have trained with Dr. Foo and they followed his mantra Respect the past and embrace the future Even with his distinguished accolades, he cherished his family first and foremost. He rarely missed his children's sporting events His daughter described his unstoppable energy and playful nature and Recollects when he when he took her to the Pittsburgh legendary amusement park Kennywood ten times in two weeks He loved the thrill of the roller coasters His son remembers when his dad was working long hours But still did his best to tuck him into bed every night and to share stories and to comfort him Dr. Foo told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2002. I practice medicine with unconditional love the way you are with your children You don't expect anything back, but it comes back to you I reached out to several of his colleagues his former residents and fellows asking them to share Dr. Foo memories with me Everyone had such heartwarming stories about Freddie. His aphorisms are famous and unforgettable Don't embarrass me in front of my foreign fellows. We fix it. If you want a second opinion ask Dr. Foo twice If you go fast, you cannot make a mistake and Each person shared the same thoughts. Dr. Foo had such a special gift to make everyone better He was able to uplift anyone and made each person feel special The sadness that we feel today is a price that we're paying that we pay for getting to know such an incredible man During one of his last days of life that I spent with him. He told me not to be sad He told me that he had taken advantage of every opportunity and that he had lived life to the fullest He told me that he had lived the American dream He taught us how to live each and every day and also how to die with incredible dignity Thank you All right, let's see if we can get this it's working so It's probably a great honor for me the greatest in my life to To pay a tribute to Freddie Foo. So I'm gonna be a little bit more a little bit more personal And I think at the end of it you'll see why hopefully Alright, so thank you for asking me to do this and I'm gonna do it more from a Isocos perspective There we go, so we're all gonna miss him we miss Freddie We miss these pictures that he sent us about Pittsburgh that he really loved about his fun in the theater and doing the double bundle dance and And just having fun with friends, but I'm sure his family is gonna probably miss him much longer and it must be tough for them But we miss him But as he said Freddie and he told Falka he had a good life So I think we should carry on from here and really Live our lives that Freddie would be proud of us And that was me and Freddie with a couple of bottles of Dom Perignon. He loved his life and we now have a Isocos Freddie Foo wine club that's going to be launched in Boston. So we'll we'll carry on with it So I think what I want to do is You know what he meant to us what can we learn going forward and when I made this Prepare this talk. I really figured some stuff out that I that that's hopefully gonna help me going forward So I think one thing is he treated people like they belong And I played a bit of sport and I can tell you now as a sportsman The biggest thing in sport is to feel that you belong you play against Tiger Woods in your tea off and you know You don't belong there and you're never gonna beat him So to belong somewhere is really important and I think sometimes we do the same to you know To come and talk to these big guys and and and the first time you come and you don't feel like you belong But somehow Freddie from the first day. I met him. He made me feel like I belong he In Osaka with a meeting. He put me on the executive committee who the hell knows why this kid from Africa and And So I always thought you know, why me? Why would he why would he why would he do this? And So I was on there, but I didn't believe I could do it I'm sure most people around didn't believe I could do it, but Freddie believed I could do it So that was good enough for me And then we had an executive meeting and I was there an hour before I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna miss it and we walked in and I saw them sitting in a room and I walked in and said hello to Freddie and everybody and our CEO at the time Reminded me that this was a finance committee meeting and please could I leave I don't belong there And as I walked out Freddie said, please come back to your part of us now You can hear everything and that just made me think he he really that made me feel that I belong and from that point onwards Nothing could stop me So I think it's really important that all of us are leaders and we when you meet somebody Really make them feel that they belong And then the next thing so when I became further on I became president I always phone Freddie when there's any any problem and people gave me trouble I always wanted Freddie to help me and he always said to me don't stress the small stuff and I thought yes Well, how is this possible? Why doesn't he get angry? This guy said something against us and he said to me don't stress the small stuff And I think I understand it and I'll talk a little bit about that and then lastly education is all important to him and an Education is education, but it's always trying to help people to fulfill who they are We educate surgeons, but we have to help them to fulfill who they are in life So I'm gonna just a little bit about all of those things. So Freddie really Really felt to me that I belong and I always thought why what you know, what what did Freddie see me? sorry But as it turned out and It actually they sell study group people were giving talks about Freddie and everybody wanted to have it Everybody wants something to say and I realized that Freddie didn't really think I was great. He felt that about everybody Everybody always gave him a chance that all of us thought, you know, Freddie had a special thing for me Freddie had this special he really liked me and I realized I wasn't special Freddie Just treated everybody like that and what a great character What a great character to have and I think we should all I'm certainly not like that But I'll try and be better in future And this is my good friends and he always said to me don't stress the small stuff and this happened at ACL study group, too There was a big talk by a famous London surgeon on how how the MCL gets injured during During during the injury and when he talked like that, they did the test in external rotation And I said to my friend next to me I think the ACL is injured with the tibia going into internal rotation and he said no No, it's actually you know, who are you this is done in London. Don't worry about it. This is not And then Alan get good came around and he said to them listen I think they I think this injury happens in internal rotation and they said, you know Alan, that's a really good point We want to do and I said what? But I realized these are my friends they don't want to make me feel bad I've never done any research on this I didn't really know and I've probably done it to them all three of us come from playing from rugby playing nations And when you talk about rugby I played at a much higher level than them and I don't really anything they say I don't really Take for so my point is, you know, when people when people say something that you don't really That sort of hurts you a bit and you think they don't mean anything about it It's not some deep dark thing that they want to get at you. And that's what Freddie told me. He said Don't don't stress the small stuff And then lastly education and I think this is how we were so in the meeting in Cape Town This was Freddie prepared this meeting and then he passed away. So we had this meeting live I think he's lost lost the talk that he actually prepared and it was it was a lifetime of achievement and I have a new partner and I said to him listen, you got to come now. You can come to Easter costs We're gonna do some research. You're gonna listen to these guys And he said to me no, he doesn't really want to come and I thought why why would you do that? He says listen these days when he goes to meetings all he is people selling product They selling some company's product and if they're not selling a company's product They're selling themselves and I thought wow That's a that's a serious thing to say and it made me think about it And I think we should all think about that Freddie and Peter Fowler and these guys you remember their talks It was never about product. They were not selling anything. They were really trying to educate you and they're really wanting to to Fulfill your potential then my son said to me listen if I really want to Get to my potential. Should I leave South Africa? Should I get should I go to USA or England or and the and the bad answer was yes I had to say to him. Yes, and then I thought if Freddie never left Hong Kong Would he have been the same person that he that he turned out to be and I do not it sort of feels bad But it's not the countries that he's going to that's the problem. They are creating the circumstances for us to be ourselves It's the countries where you come from But if you come come across these people and you see that they haven't got 50 or 80 or 100 publications Just just keep it in mind. It's not so that's so easy in some other places. So And then finally there was Freddie Saying thank you to me There's No brandy in this it's pure coke I can promise you that but I just want to say from my point of view and This speech could have been given by a thousand people around the world thousand surgeons They all felt like Freddie really felt them feel possible. So On behalf of all the surgeons. Thank you Freddie for making us feel feel that we belong You Okay, always a hard act to follow after Robin and and villain so I'm I'll get goods and orthopedic surgeon at London Ontario and Extremely honored mark for the invitation to say a few words about our friend and mentor Pete Fowler now Pete sadly passed away 16th of November 2022 and what I thought really from my perspective today was just to really Inform some of you in the audience who maybe didn't know Pete very well and really didn't don't maybe understand His contribution to our society and to our lives And then I'm looking forward to hearing a number of other people share their their experiences of really knowing the man because unfortunately I really only knew him over the last 10 years So Pete was brought up in Southern Ontario, so Woodstock, Ontario We just um advance the slides Try this one so Woodstock, Ontario and he did his undergraduate studies at University of Western, Ontario And you know, we've we've already heard from Darren's wonderful talk You know honoring Jack Kennedy and really Jack Kennedy, you know had the foresight to See the the potential that Pete had and bring Pete But he brought Pete back as the very first resident in orthopedics at the University of Western, Ontario He was actually the University of Michigan at the time doing an internship And he was he was he was told he had to come back to London, Ontario and be his first resident in orthopedics and but with and really that that that partnership Really expanded going forward was that developed the Fowler County Sport Medicine Clinic as we know it today Pete was a an athlete himself. He was a swimmer He represented Canada and the Pan Am Games in 1956 He brought home a silver medal and there's a lot of you know That that athletic performance and there's an interest in and and the athlete's shoulder really brought him forward and getting into sport medicine and so in 1995 after taking forward what Kennedy had set up as being of essentially a small varsity clinic Pete developed the Fowler Kennedy Clinic as it is now and this was a vision where he brought together primary care physicians sport medicine physicians Physiotherapists orthopedic surgeons all under the same roof which in the in the 90s certainly in Canada That was a big move move forward and that really is set up what we have today It was a huge proponent of sport medicine obviously he loved looking after the Western Mustangs football team and you can see here the picture in the bottom of the awesome foursome of Sandy Kirkley, Ned, Pete, my current partner Bob Litchfield But you know He did a lot of research He really mentored a lot of people through research but also probably his passion for teaching was his his big piece and in 1982 he developed the The sport medicine orthopedic sport medicine fellowship program. We now have a fellowship society upwards of 150 members and we meet every couple of years to have a fellow society meeting and We're incredibly grateful for the legacy that he has provided this is a recent picture when Ned came up as our visiting professor at our residence day and That's my current partners Bob Litchfield Kevin Willits Bob Giffen and Ryan Deegan and certainly over the last 10 years the support that he has given me has been incredible But he has been honored in many many ways and I think it's important that people understand that it's great that we have the opportunity To celebrate both him and Freddie today with this combined meeting of ISACOS and AOSSM. ISACOS was formed in 1995 was the time of the International Arthroscopy Association and the International Knee Society They joined forces and formed ISACOS and Pete was tasked as being the very first President and really set up that the building blocks of that of this society and it's essentially helped make it to what it is today He's also one of only two people Pete and and Freddie as we've already heard that have been the president of both ISACOS and AOSSM So in AOSSM he was present in 2002 and then was awarded Mr. Sports Medicine, so the Robert E Leach Award now in 2007 simultaneously inducted into the Hall of Fame at AOSSM and then very proud here in 2018 he was made the Order of Canada and this is really just one of the highest Awards that you can really be bestowed upon you as a Canadian citizen He was very very proud of that. You can see a cheeky smile on his face After retirement he needed something different and he you know It really speaks to his ability as a builder and he moved to Qatar In Doha and he helped set up Aspartar Sport Medicine Clinic And of course as we know Aspartar is one of the premier sport medicine clinics in internationally and For me, it's been interesting going there and working there because I still see particularly in the OR Many things that have been established in London, Ontario and I can put my finger on it That is very much a Pete Fowler-ism even the number of years later But he had you know friendship Darren talked a lot about friendship and the friends that you will meet during your career and through these societies and Pete and a number of past presidents here that that would get together on a regular basis post retirement and share their experiences and Talk about well, they're always people's always trying to avoid getting a fake joint and I think he managed it with an osteotomy He's very pro osteotomy, but he never had a fake joint But certainly that was something that they would often discuss but most important for him was his family and so Libby and then his children Tim Cameron and Megan and Peter jr. And then the many grandchildren that he leaves behind So absolutely stunning family And we're just incredibly grateful for what he has been able to achieve and what he has set up for us going forward and we just hope that we can Do him proud. Thank you very much for your attention You

Dr. Freddy Foo

mentorship

partnership

sports medicine

legacy

education