ARIZONA ORTHOPEDIC SURGICAL history

James Watkins of San Francisco became President at the first meeting held in San Francisco, in 1933.

1934: The second WOA President was Steele Stewart, MD, from Honolulu.

Doctor Diveley was certified by the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery in 1935.

1936: Fourth WOA President Charles Lowman, MD was the founder of the Orthopaedic Hospital in Los Angeles.

He served as president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in 1947-48.

In 1949, while at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Doctor Taylor established a formal Armed Forces Orthopaedic Residency training program.

He worked with the Baylor College of Medicine and the National Infantile Paralysis Foundation to establish, in 1950, the Southwestern Respiratory Care Center.

He was elected WOA president in 1952, and his primary interest was in establishing a competitive presentation by Resident surgeons.

In 1955, the WOA was incorporated as a “not-for-profit organization” under the presidency of Warren White, MD. The aim of the group included scientific, educational and charitable purposes for the advancement of the art and science of orthopaedic surgery.

Peltier was offered, and accepted the position as Professor of Surgery (orthopedics) and Chairman of the Section of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, Kansas City, Kansas, in 1957.

In 1960, JBJS became the official journal of the WOA, and for some years after the meeting abstracts were incorporated into the Journal.

Doctor Thompson passed away in 1961.

In a lecture on the history of the WOA given by Doctor Steele Stewart at the 1967 Annual Meeting, he indicated that he and Howard Markel spoke of the possibility of a Western Orthopaedic Association while they were on the SS Maui as it sailed toward the Golden Gate.

After serving as Head of the Section of Orthopedic Surgery at KU for fifteen years, he moved to Tucson in 1971, and established the orthopedic program at the new College of Medicine of the University of Arizona.

The Lloyd Taylor AwardLloyd Taylor was President of the WOA in 1977.

Rex Diveley, MD, died on November 24, 1980.

There he was the Head of the Section of Orthopedic Surgery for fifteen years and served an additional period as acting head of the Department of Surgery before his retirement in 1990.

After he passed away, an award in his honor was established by Richard Welch, MD (President in 2001), who recognized that Doctor Taylor’s passion was Resident education.

Since 2003, the WOA has contracted with Data Trace Management Services to provide their financial and logistical expertise to the organization.

A biography by Lo Vecchio, Reckling and Reckling, “Onward and Upward”: The Career Trajectory and Memories of Leonard F. Peltier, M.D., Ph.D., was published in 2004.

The central office remained in the San Francisco area until Jackie’s retirement, and then was moved to Napa, California until 2005.

The tradition of presenting Presidential Medallions was reestablished during the presidency of Doctor Ramon Jimenez in 2008.

The Blair Filler Award was established as an annual award to honor those special individuals who throughout their career have demonstrated and promoted the highest values of the WOA. Doctor Filler was the first awardee at the 2016 Meeting in Indian Wells, CA.

William McMaster, MD, Managing Director of the WOAMay 2019