Many take lending a hand to students as a source of personal pride. Few take things as far as Kevin Plancher.
The surgeon created the Orthopaedic Foundation for Active Lifestyles Inc. in 2004 to help advance local training in orthopedic medicine. In addition to renting out an instructional facility to practicing doctors, OFALS runs a “bioskills” lab to interest high school students in the profession ”“ with students allowed to operate on model hands formed from synthetic tissue.
“The idea was create an organization to, one: educate doctors who couldn”™t afford to travel by building them a local teaching lab, and two: build a program for children to be a doctor for a day. Let them operate with real knives and ”¦ tissue.”
OFALS rents out its bioskills laboratory as an alternative to commercial or university facilities for groups with medical lab needs. The organization has participated in two active clinical trials, one sponsored by Pfizer Inc. that compared its Celebrex anti-inflammatory drug against over-the-counter alternatives such as ibuprofen. OFALS is also one of six U.S. sites participating in a five-year study of a new product from Zimmer, cartilage “plugs” use to fill in arthritic lesions in the knee.
OFALS also runs:
Ӣ sports medicine and athletic training programs for high school students;
Ӣ self-management health education programs for arthritis sufferers;
Ӣ seminars on preventing sports injuries;
”¢ rehabilitation programs for “weekend warriors;” and
Ӣ anatomy and physiology lectures for medical and nursing schools to give their students off campus continuing education credit opportunities.
Plancher says OFALS remains one of the few privately operated medical labs not affiliated with any major university. The most famous, at least among sports buffs, is James Andrews and his Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center in Birmingham Ala., famed for diagnosing pitching injuries ”“ in 2010 at its annual gala fundraiser, OFALS awarded Andrews its annual “excellence in sports medicine” award recognizing the surgeon”™s contributions to the field.
In just seven years even while running his own Plancher Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine practice in New York City and Greenwich, Plancher has cobbled together for OFALS a group of advisers and supporters that would be the envy of far-more established nonprofits.
OFALS”™ medical advisory board includes Michael Kaplan, ESPN”™s lead medical correspondent and an instructor at Yale University”™s orthopedics department, and Carl Nissen, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut who lead”™s UConn”™s sports medicine area.
Richard Berman, the former president of Manhattanville College in Westchester County, N.Y., also is a board member, with Plancher Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine the college”™s official team physician.
Plancher has drawn other big names to support OFALS during its growth. For its seventh anniversary gala in November, the folk-rock group America played a set, with Martha Stewart in attendance; at the previous year”™s event, tennis great John McEnroe lent his support along with former New York City Mayor David Dinkins.
Plancher will take all the support he can get ”“ through 2009, the most recent year that the IRS has published OFALS”™ annual reports online, the organization has never exceeded $600,000 in annual gifts.
“2011 was a difficult year, although we exceeded and surpassed our goals,” Plancher said. “Funding changed in the medical world; there are new rules and regulations for medical companies. They are no longer allowed to do certain things.”
