2015 DOCTORS’ BALL PHYSICIAN HONOREES
Dr. John Shaw
EXCELLENCE IN INTERNATIONAL
HUMANITARIAN SERVICE
I
n 1972, Dr. John Shaw arrived in Jeonju, South Korea, to serve as
a doctor for the Presbyterian Church. Fresh out of an orthopedic
surgery residency at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
the Iowa native found a poor country filled with people severely disabled from car accidents, falls, and the crippling effects of polio and
tuberculosis. With his wife, Sharon, an occupational therapist, Shaw
set to work not just performing surgeries, but starting a rehabilitation
program and clinics for the disabled.
When Shaw returned to the United States, he did a second residency
in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Louisville’s Frazier Rehab
Institute (later adding a fellowship in rehabilitation surgery, also at
Frazier), making him one of a very few practicing orthopedic surgeons
anywhere also functioning as a rehabilitation physician. Dr Shaw
returned to South Korea, training doctors there in both orthopedic
surgery and rehabilitation medicine. He taught a local carpenter to
make braces and prosthetics for patients, and oversaw the building of
a hospital wing that became the first in-patient rehabilitation facility
in the country.
Meanwhile, Shaw also performed the first leg lengthening operations
in South Korea, life-changing procedures for young adults deformed
by trauma and disease. He did spine stabilization for patients with
scoliosis and fractures – often at no charge to those who couldn’t
afford it. Shaw’s first South Korean orthopedic surgery resident says
he learned from Shaw not only how to operate on patients, but also
how to lovingly care for them. Now President and CEO of Konyang
University Hospital, Dr. Chang-il Park joined Shaw in 2014 for the
dedication of the John C. Shaw Rehabilitation Center at Presbyterian
Hospital in Jeonju.
Randy Napier, President of Frazier Rehab Institute, says for Shaw,
“Patient care always comes first. You see these people coming back
that we recognize from 22 years ago.” He says Shaw makes sure they’re
getting the care they need and keeps them motivated, even spending
time with them in the therapy gym.
Ten years after a devastating accident that left Jenny Smith paralyzed
from the neck down, Shaw performed six surgeries to transfer the
tendons of functioning muscles into her paralyzed arms. Now Smith
lives and works independently, and can hold a toothbrush and grasp
the hand of her young nephew. Where paralysis “rips everything away
from you,” Smith says, “being given the ability to grasp something…
makes a world of difference.”
A member of University of Louisville Physicians in practice now
for 45 years, Shaw continues to help accident victims, stroke patients
and others regain life-changing function in their limbs and hands. Reflecting on the patients whose lives he has changed over the years and
around the globe, Shaw is filled with emotion. “I see so many patients
walking out there on the street,” he says. “I just want to grab them
and bring them in with me and say, ‘We’re going to make you better.’”
OCTOBER 2015
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