And Lou Schoen will introduce Don Baxter. Well, I've been truly blessed not just to have one mentor, but to have multiple mentors. And when I was a resident, I applied for the AO scholarship and was lucky enough to be awarded one in Seattle and spent 10 weeks with Ted in Seattle, which was very formative. Mel Joss had great respect for him and inspired me to go to him for training. And then he passed the baton to Don to finish the package. Let's see. OK, there you go. And again, I'm privileged to be on the podium here with both of them. Don Baxter. So who is Don Baxter? He was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a son of a high school principal and a second grade teacher. He grew up with good values and a lovely family. And he graduated after being a multiple athletic star with a football, basketball track. I think he had a 52nd quarter mile, maybe even faster. He then went to Mercer University, Macon, Georgia, where he played basketball. I think he had 1,000 points and 600 rebounds and was recognized as one of their lead stars. He was brought back as a speaker at Founders Day at Mercer College and spoke there, actually, a little bit about basketball, but more about a very formative experience he had while he was in Mercer. Mercer College was, at that point, a segregated school. And he had the privilege of being asked to have a roommate from Africa, Sam Oney. At the time, he was a bit concerned because he was trying to study, going to go to med school. He was playing all these sports. And he thought that he would be, perhaps, picked on and ultimately decided, after much meditation, that he would go for it and embrace Sam and brought him not only through the college years, but also brought him into the community, made sure he had a nice home and a church, and made sure he had lots of friends, and brought him into the community. Sam was at this Founders Day speaker event and thanked Don for the openness that he embraced him with. After going to college, he went to the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, Georgia. At that point, he met a fine young nurse, Frances Baxter. They fell in love, married, and here they are these days. He then did his internship and residency at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston and excelled there. He was not going to do orthopedic surgery at first. He was going to do neurosurgery. And he went up to neurosurgery department at Hopkins and was in the waiting room waiting for his interview. And he saw the patients were a bit challenged. And some of these patients, obviously, have stroke or brain tumors, head injuries. And it could be a big challenge. Something went off, a light bulb. And he said, you know what? I love sports. Maybe it'll be a little bit more fun for me to be an orthopedic surgeon than to be a neurosurgeon. So he changed his path and went into orthopedic surgery at UT. He did his fellowship and foot and ankle under Henry DuVries and Roger Mann in San Francisco. Roger was just getting settled. I think at some point they lived together. Roger put you up in his house? Maybe, not really, in the back of the house. Anyway, I think he had you set up the sprinkler system also, if I remember correctly. Anyway, kind of like Ted's wall, he did his fellowship. And then after the fellowship, he did some additional training with Mel Joss in New York, who was my mentor. He had great respect for Joss. And Joss had great respect for him, as I said earlier. But he was an eclectic guy. He also was eager to learn from other people. So he learned from his peers, of course. You see here Greer Richardson and Hap Luder. He spent some time with Bill Hamilton, who was an expert in sports as well and an expert in ballet. And Don took up an interest in treating ballet dancers and was the lead ballet doctor in Texas and took care of the Houston Ballet. This is Bill Hamilton with Jeff Johnson. Jeff was also a fellow of Don. So it all comes around, one big circle. So Don has published many books and papers. He's won numerous awards. He's nicely published. He's best known probably for his innovation in the area of sports foot and ankle. He's taken care of numerous famous athletes, dancers. Anyone who does anything quickly on their feet, he has taken care of them with his quick and skilled hands. He's a clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at University of Texas in Houston. And in that position, he started a fellowship, first alone. And then he brought on one of his young protégés, Tom Tom Clanton was a football star at Rice University and was interested in going into medicine. He spent some time with Don Baxter and saw that Don was not only fast on his feet, but quick in the OR and gifted surgeon and a very charismatic, inspirational mentor. He inspired Tom to do sports and foot and ankle. And then Tom came back and joined him, and they ran the fellowship program together. So this is a picture of Jim Beskin, Don Baxter, and if anyone could guess, that's our president, Jeff Johnson, wearing the light blue shirt. This is a fellowship reunion back in 89. Don assumed the role of president of our society after being on the board. This is Don with Jim San Marco. During his time from 95 to 96, they brought an ACGME accreditation for foot and ankle fellowships. He also did a lot of outreach to Brazil and Japan and was involved in a lot of upgrading of our academic offerings. Here's a list of most of his fellows. I believe if any of his fellows are here in the audience, could they stand up quickly? Come on, guys. All right, the rest are standing up, but they're short. OK, so I had a chance to meet Don, and I was doing my residency after finishing my AO scholarship with Ted Hanson. I went to meet Don. Here he is with his brother, actually, wearing a mask. I don't know why he was wearing the mask. I think it might have been Halloween. But I took the fellowship position, and we had a great time. I wasn't only mentored in orthopedic foot and ankle surgery. I was mentored in family. This is, sorry. OK, I'm OK. Anyway, I was mentored in family by Don, and Don is an incredibly loving father and husband. And this is my son, Jeremy, with his son, James, who passed away. Here he is with Jeremy. And this is my son, James, with his son, Ted. And this is my son, Jeremy, with his son, Ted. Here he is with Jeremy. Jeremy is now taller, but not as tall as Don. And this is Francis with Jeremy and Ian, our son that was born in Texas. And Don with his daughter, Marion, who also went to a nursing school like mom. And here's Don continuing to mentor, again, not only me, but now he's actually mentoring my family. Through their years, he's been an active part whenever we see him. He always has some words of advice and kind things to say about them and very inspirational. He also has a huge family of fellows and residents or people who have visited him. He's a very warm, embracing person. And he's been also the father to several of the presidents of our society, Tom Clanton, Jeff Johnson, Glenn Pfeffer, myself, and future president, Bill McGarvey. He was like Joss in many ways, because he always added a little sarcasm and humor to things. This is Joss in his later years. He always liked a little surprise from Joss. And this was a little slide we made for Joss. Don and I did this to send to Joss to cheer him up when he was feeling ill. There you go. And he was happy with that. But this is a guy that you can look up to not only physically, but spiritually, intellectually, and technically. Lots of fun hanging out with Don, learning to shoot the breeze, chatting it up, learning to catch flies. Chew it. OK, there you go. That's good. Anyway, these are lots of photos of Don with my fellows and my residents. And this is with us performing at one of the Foot Society's meetings. We had a competition, and our fellowship entered. It was one of the first times I appeared on stage, thanks to Don's inspiration. Anyway, a wonderful mentor, a outstanding surgeon, a great father, great teacher, researcher, innovator, leader. We've all been blessed to know him. I think if you don't know him, you should come up and meet him and you'll instantly be embraced by him. Here's Melvin Dease. He was the one who gave me the tour that included some parts of Houston that might have been a little bit dark. But he was given the credit for that. He was given the credit card, so we were able to go to lots of places where we were treated properly. Anyway, this is Thigpen, Michael Plain, Jim Baskin, Dave Porter, Palumbo, Roy Benedetti's in the picture somewhere. Anyway, wonderful person, great leader, great friend. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Don Baxter. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Lou Schoen

Don Baxter

mentorship

orthopedic surgery

foot and ankle surgery