Dr. Asher’s Research Improved Durability of TJR
It's a matter of timing

“I’m one of the farm boys who found his way to becoming an orthopaedic surgeon, which was a common pathway for people in my day,” Dr. Asher said. “I started college with the intention of becoming a veterinarian, but after three semesters I thought that might limit me too much. I had been impressed with the work of a general practice doctor in our small town, so I transferred to pre-med at Kansas State. An excellent orthopaedic rotation early in my internship solidified my decision to seek orthopaedic surgery rather than general surgery specialty training.”

An Annual Campaign donor since 1982 and a Shands member since 1998, Dr. Asher had a strong interest in research from the start, fuelled by witnessing the transition of orthopaedics to total joint solutions.

“I was educated as a general orthopaedic surgeon and a research fellow, doing work in tissue culture and bone culture. But the best experience I had was at Mass General, where I was able to watch the evolution to total joint. When I started my residency in 1967 the Smith-Petersen Vitallium® cup, introduced nearly 30 years prior, was the main treatment for arthritis of the hip.”

Credited with producing the first predictable results in interpositional hip arthroplasty, Vitallium® cup was introduced by Marius Smith-Petersen, M.D. in 1938, a fourth-generation refinement of his original glassmold prosthesis (1923), placed between the femoral head and the acetabulum to, Dr. Smith-Petersen hoped, “guide nature’s repair” of the joint.

“By 1970, Vitallium® resurfacing had been supplanted by total hip arthroplasty, so I was able to see the rapid evolution of management of arthritis,” Dr. Asher recalled.

“The purpose of our research was to learn if different bone cement kneading times, something the surgeon has some control of, affects bone cement fatigue life. And the answer was yes, longer is better. This line of research helped improve the durability of total joint replacement. Without the OREF grant, it probably would not have been done.”

A commitment to support the whole of the profession undergirds Dr. Asher’s reasons for putting his personal resources behind OREF. “Nothing changes for the better without education and research. Without research we would not have antibiotics, vaccines, or orthopaedic implants and prostheses. In our practice lifetime the scope and effectiveness of our surgical procedures and rehabilitation programs has dramatically expanded. This would not have been possible without research.”

Dr. Asher believes the need for orthopaedic research is more pressing than ever. “We are in a progressively difficult time. There is a fair amount of anti-intellectualism afoot and research will definitely be affected for two reasons. First, funding will not be there in the carte-blanche way it has been in the past. Second, questions will become harder to ask and will require more and more sophisticated answers. The days of setting up a lab with basic tools are long past. Genomic research is very expensive.”

As Dr. Asher sees it, the time is right for orthopaedic surgeons to support OREF.

“Orthopaedic surgeons have so much to be thankful for. We’ve made a good living. This is our time to donate to OREF to secure the future of the next generation. Most orthopaedic research tends to go to about a dozen institutions. OREF research tends to go elsewhere. Big advances often come from the periphery. OREF is in a position to keep that path open. I strongly encourage giving to OREF.”