A Brief Summary Of Foundation Activities In 2023

The Foundation (TAF) engaged in numerous activities with its Collaboration Partners and others in 2023.

TAF funded over $455,000 in grants and awards in 2023.

In January 2023, TAF and OREF jointly hosted a cocktail party during the Orthopedics Today meeting in HI, during which Tom Sculco MD, current OREF President, and Lee Grossman, OREF CEO, graciously acknowledged the $100,000 Aircast Foundation grant that facilitated OREF in being the recipient of over $2 Million grant funds from MTEC and DoD.

In March 2023, at the AAOS annual meeting, and as part of the  trustees reception, Dr. Richard Kyle introduced TAF and OREF presented its’ prestigious Lifetime Service Award to TAF. 

TAF committed $10K to OLC for new scrubs;  and met with and increased to $15k,  TAF future annual commitment to AAOS;  

And at the OREF Champions Breakfast,  Dr. Mark Miller, then AOSSM President, presented the 2023 multi-center grant award to Dr. Jeffrey Nepple for Optimizing Outcomes of Hip Surgery in Borderline  Acetabular Dysplasia, of which TAF funded $350k, collaboratively with OREF and AOSSM.

TAF also with met with the AOSSM grant research committee to discuss this year’s TAF-AOSSM collaboration for awards including the Playmaker grants.

TAF also met with the new officers of OTA to discuss this years grant collaboration.

In June 2023, TAF met with the AOSSM research committee to review the grant applications to be considered during the July 2023 Playmaker event.

TAF also attended the Rush Anchor Cross Society celebration with other philanthropic donors.

In July 2023, we attended the AOSSM Annual Meeting in Washington DC. During the AOSSM board dinner, Jack McVicker (TAF President/Chairman) received the prestigious Circle of Honor Award.

TAF engaged with the Research Committee and attended and participated in the Playmaker presentations, in which three $25,000 grants were awarded.  One to Henry Ellis MD et al, for Implementation of Neurocognitive Dual Task to Improve ACLR-RTP Assessment;  one to Kristen Nicholson PhD, for New Wearable Tech to Define Elbow Varus Torque for Safer RTP; and the third to Michael Yu PhD, for Imaging of Damaged Collagens in OA Cartilage.

In August 2023, Duke Medical’s Faegin Leadership Scholar  award, funded by TAF, was designated to:  Alex Bassil.

Also in August, Jack, Mary and Ron toured the new Physical Therapy Center at the Northshire campus of Southwest Vermont Medical Center, which center was funded by a $100k award in the name of TAF and in honor of Glenn W. Johnson,  TAF’s benefactor.

In September 2023, the OTA Research Committee designated Lily Mundy MD, et al, as the to be grantee of an $80k TAF funded award for A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Flap Coverage within 72 hours vs Standard of Care in Type IIIB Lower Extremity Open Fractures.

Also in September, TAF contributed another $15,000 to Rush for the continued study by Grant Garrigues MD and Robin Pourzil, PhD, for increasing data toward an NIH application relating to total shoulder arthroplasty.

In October 2023, OTA at its annual meeting, announced an award to TAF for it’s contribution to OTA studies.

In November 2023, TAF was again invited to participate in the AOSSM Corporate Advisory Group meeting.  This  enabled us to learn of AOSSM future plans and accomplishments.

Also in November, the TAF/OREF/MTEC/DoD grant recipients (TAF provided the $100k “seed” money) in the total amounts of $1.7 million, were awarded to Don Goss, MD et al for Objective Dynamic and 3D knee assessment Medical device to Improve Recover and Accelerate Return to Readiness of Members with Knee Pain; and to Daniel Clifton MD, et al, for Dynamic Gait-Synchronous Neuromuscular Stimulation Following ACL Reconstruction.

In December 2023, TAF supported the 2024 Forum meeting with a $7500 speaker sponsorship  award.

In recognition of  and to honor the numerous contributions in Orthopaedics by Richard Kyle, MD,   in 2023, TAF, via OREF, award $30,000 in resident research grants designated by Dr. Kyle.