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President, 1999–2001
PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGE
Today, at the end of April 2015, I am on the train from Berne to Lausanne to help a young knee surgeon
do a trochleoplasty and then a supracondylar varus osteotomy, both difficult femoropatellar problems. Great to still be called!–Isn’t it all about being called, to still be somehow useful? Teaching orthopaedics, knee surgery in particular, is the only thing, more or less, I truly understood in
my life ... and long after reaching “emeritus” stage.
The train approaches the “Lavaux” and suddenly you see the entire
Lake Geneva region below you, with beautiful small villages and country houses scattered within vineyards, leading down to the lake–a Unesco World Heritage Site. Looking to the upper end of the lake you think to grab a glance of Montreux, where
an eminent moment of your life took place. Many fond memories come up.
The ISAKOS Montreux Congress Meeting – those present still remember the President’s Dinner at Château Chillon, the social evening at the Circus in Vevey, the boat excursion and the sounds of Miles Davis in lecture rooms during the breaks, reminding us of the Montreux Jazz Festival. In the end, these are the moments that stay in one’s memory, not just the quality lectures.
“ISAKOS or IKARUS” was the
title of my Presidential Lecture in which I warned about flying too high. Remember, it was the year of 9/11–when everything changed.
My personal pleasure from investing time and effort in ISAKOS started with the International Society of
the Knee (ISK). I had the chance to attend its first Congress held in Lyon (1979), with Albert Trillat as President. There we were able to present our work on the Reversed Pivot Shift. Having attended all subsequent ISK Congresses, my friend Prof. René Marti from Amsterdam asked me to be Program Chair for the Congress of his Presidency in Hong Kong (1995), held together with the International Arthroscopy Association (IAA). There the merger of the two societies to one new Society, called ISAKOS, was decided. At the end of this Congress I was approached by Gary Poehling, Vice President of the newly created combined society, asking if
I had an interest in stepping into the presidential line. At that period I had invested a lot of time in ESSKA acting as Head of the Scientific Committee for seven years so I had to decide where to go from there.
After Buenos Aires and
Washington DC, the First European ISAKOS Congress was planned.
As a Swiss, I was allowed to host in Montreux, just 40 minutes from my hospital in Fribourg. This of course facilitated my work, and solved the problem of looking for an independent office and secretary. Kathryn Grady,
of the AAOS Office, had resigned but luckily hinted that Michele Johnson,
a consultant who had participated
in Congresses in both Buenos Aires and Washington DC, might provide management services. We now see that as a lucky strike!
She has stayed in the Office for
15 years doing excellent work.
Per Renström, Program Chair, together with the Program Committee presented a really fine Congress Meeting, and from that year on, I can state with pride, ISAKOS really took off. Without the help of my family,
my four ladies at Château Chillon, all dressed in traditional Swiss costumes, my part would have been fruitless.
Leaving Lake Geneva I am convinced finally, not all you did was useless.
– Roland P. Jakob
1999 – 2001
Roland Jakob, Professor Emeritus SWITZERLAND
12 ISAKOS 20TH ANNIVERSARY