Title:Reflections on Health with Robert Fan

Reflections on Health with Robert Fan, M.D. (G’85, M’89), Orthopedics in Salem, Oregon

I was born in London, England. My father was a surgeon with the National Health Service. When I was six, we moved to New York and then New Jersey where he worked at Hackensack University Medical Center. In high school I worked summer jobs there.

For college I went to Cornell and then applied to medical school but didn’t have the GPA to get in. I enrolled in Georgetown’s Special Master’s in Physiology—a great decision. It got my foot in the door for medical school.

I chose orthopedics because the people I met during rotations were even-keeled, personable, and enjoyed life. It’s no coincidence that many friends also went into orthopedics. I like to analyze a problem, fix it, see results, and understand how it happened. I enjoy being in the operating room. It’s great to get to know my patients and see them get better.

Today I focus on the shoulder—arthroscopic surgery and replacements, often seeing athletes. We are fragile. A bad injury can be a life-changer. Lower extremity strength and balance is hugely important for longevity. I encourage patients to keep up exercise, even if it’s just walking.

Orthopedics has changed a lot. There’s no procedure I learned in medical school, residency, or fellowship that I continue to do. My career has been one of early adoption of new techniques. You have to innovate, because medicine evolves, like the use of robotics in hip and knee replacement surgery.

For shoulder replacement surgery, we are developing the use of mapping using virtual reality goggles to implement a preop plan in real time. With arthroscopic surgery, video technology and instrumentation has evolved quite a bit.

Today medicine suffers without a collective political voice to advocate for patients. We see Medicare cuts year after year, and millions of dollars going to health insurance executives that should be going to patient care.

At our med school orientation they asked us to always remember the excitement of that moment, the butterflies. As your career goes on, you want to keep being excited about what you do, and be willing to learn.

I grew up playing lacrosse. Played in college and all through med school and I still play, but now it’s in slow motion. It’s a tight community. I do it for the social aspect.

Last year I was playing in a tournament in Colorado, and someone ran from the other field asking for a doctor. When I got there a player was down, pulseless and not breathing. I helped do CPR and he ended up surviving. He was transported to Denver for an open-heart bypass. I later learned he was my Cornell teammate who I hadn’t seen in 42 years. We’ve since met up—it was pretty incredible.

I reflect on success as a combination of hard work, good luck, and a strong foundation of family support. It’s true about the spouse standing next to you.

I have fond memories of Georgetown and a deep sense of appreciation for the place. I meet up with medical school friends every year. As we get older, life is really about these human connections we maintain, cherishing friendships and family.