Building programs that shape the next generation of specialists
When Dr. Georgopoulos started at Children’ s Colorado, she recognized that all orthopedic surgeons treated most— if not all— the conditions that came through the doors. But as more doctors took on areas of interest( like Dr. Georgopoulos who pursued hip dysplasia and clubfoot), she found that niche groups of patients were traveling to Children’ s Colorado to access the latest advancements.
“ We were getting kids from Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming, New Mexico and Kansas that would drive however many hours to come to Children’ s Colorado on a weekly basis because that’ s how often we do the casting,” Dr. Georgopoulos says of kids receiving care for clubfoot.“ My dream was that we would be the preeminent clubfoot program and hub in the western half of the United States.”
After learning the Ponseti method— a nonsurgical treatment for clubfoot that uses a series of castings to reposition the foot— from her colleagues in Iowa and Missouri, Dr. Georgopoulos assembled a team to conduct research to compare this new method to the current surgical approach and found the Ponseti method to be superior. The team then brought the technique to Children’ s Colorado and founded the Clubfoot Program that allowed a dedicated team of doctors, physician assistants and orthopedic technicians to be trained at the forefront of clubfoot care.
“ It started small, but we set up a protocol and then we got some really nice support from the department. We initially started seeing four or five kids. That moved to 70 to 90 new patients a year,” Dr. Georgopoulos says.
Similarly to her experience with patients with clubfoot, she found that infants and kids with hip dysplasia also needed a dedicated group of practitioners to provide specialized support. Alongside her colleagues, she founded another program for developmental dysplasia of the hip that proved to be successful for both patients and researchers.
“ Not only does it make for better treatments and a better program, but it also is a really good way of doing research,” Dr. Georgopoulos says.“ We set up registries of babies, and then when we wanted to look at a particular question, it was easy to go in and pull out the information that we wanted to get some good research on. We had the data to back that up.”
Retiring the scalpel, but not the impact
Dr. Georgopoulos finds that patience, discipline and doing things in a stepwise fashion ensures she’ s thriving in retirement.
“ I’ m not disciplined enough to get up at 4 or 5 a. m., which was what I used to do when I was working,” Dr. Georgopoulos laughs,“ but those are the things I think that I take from being an orthopedic surgeon.”
While those things help her after her career, she hopes her patients and their families take away that she is kind, able to diminish fears during treatment and a thoughtful communicator with children of any age. To her colleagues and younger physicians that are just entering the field, she continues to push for positivity in patient care.
“ When speaking of legacy, I always think about the education piece of our job. We teach residents and fellows not just surgical techniques or how to do a surgery, but I would like to be a role model in terms of how I approach patient care,” Dr. Georgopoulos says.“ I love it when I have a resident that decides that they want to go into pediatric orthopedics because they’ ve seen what it means to treat a child and what that work can do.”
After decades, Children’ s Colorado continues to see the work that Dr. Georgopoulos has done to further pediatric orthopedic medicine. And although she has put down the scalpel and finds working in her garden and volunteering with a local dog rescue fills her time, care for conditions like clubfoot and hip dysplasia will forever be changed because of her influence.
Thank you, Dr. G, for sharing your legacy with us.
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