Dr. Frank Kelly
Heal Thyself
Frank Kelly knows all about knee replacements. As an orthopaedic surgeon on staff with the Forsyth Street Orthopaedic Surgery & Rehabilitation Center in Macon, Georgia, he has implanted thousands into patients, restoring mobility and reducing disability.
However, his familiarity with knee replacements became even more personal when his own knee began giving him problems. Dr. Kelly was an avid jogger, golfer, and hiker. However, he experienced so much pain due to osteoarthritis, he found even getting through his work day was difficult. “It had become more painful, and it was causing me not to do the things I wanted to do,” he recalls. “By the end of the day, I was beat.”
Realizing he needed to undergo a total knee arthroplasty (replacement), Dr. Kelly knew the knee he wanted his surgeon to use, the Triathlon model built by Howmedica Osteonics (now Stryker Orthopaedics). The Triathlon is a metal on polyethylene, fixed-bearing knee prosthesis.
Dr. Kelly was familiar with this particular model because he was part of the 12-member medical and research team that helped create the implant over a five-year period. His specific contribution was to help improve the minimally invasive techniques to implant the device, to improve the range of motion of the implant, and to ensure that the materials used in the device were both safe and long lasting.
Implanting the knee in December of 2006 was a fellow member of the Triathlon knee system research team, Dr. Carl Savory of the Hughston Orthopedic Hospital in Columbus, Georgia. After the surgery, Dr. Kelly immediately began rigorous physical therapy.
His return to pain-free mobility surprised everyone, including himself. “Anything I want to do [I can],” he says. However, “the one thing I am leery about is running again. That is one thing I will never return to.”
That is, until he builds the knee that will allow it.