I’m Mel Boynton. I'm an orthopaedic surgeon at Vermont Orthopaedic Clinic,
and I'm the medical director of the clinic, as well. I decided on orthopaedics probably during
an interview to get accepted to medical school and somebody was asking me about what I really
was interested in medicine. And I hadn't thought about it before but it came out of my mouth that
I was interested in quality of life perhaps over quantity of life; and orthopaedics really is a
great field because it's all about quality of life. It's about allowing people to get back to
doing things that they may not otherwise be able to continue to do and so it's a wonderful job.
It's a wonderful thing to do. You remember lots of good stories when you're lucky enough to be
doing orthopaedic care and orthopaedic surgery. You know, one is a World Cup ski racer that had
a severe injury to his knee and was able to return to the World Cup and return to being near the top
of the leaderboard as a speed skier. But then there's others that are a logger who tears his
shoulder and is able to return to logging after you fix it and can get back to doing things like
that. That is very satisfying, as well, in fact just as satisfying. And then you know a little
old lady who falls and breaks her hip and is worried about being stuck in a nursing home,
and we're able to get her hip fixed well enough that she can maintain her independence. Lots of
good stories. We're really lucky to be doing orthopaedics – it's a great, great field.
As an orthopaedic doctor, we do an awful lot of collaboration. We don't tend to manage common
conditions like hypertension or COPD or heart disease, and so we really rely on collaborations
with our primary care physicians. A lot of medical education is spent on the medical aspects of a
patient and not a lot is spent on musculoskeletal care, so our primary care physicians really rely
on our collaboration with them, too. So access within our clinic is super important and so we
take collaboration very, very seriously. Being a doctor can be a bit stressful, so
when I'm not working I'm trying to blow off some steam oftentimes hiking with my dog Roka Jack,
chocolate lab. We head up in the mountains and ski, really enjoy Killington and Pico,
very fortunate to live here; but if you're gonna live in the cold, you better take advantage of it,
so we do. Rutland Regional Medical Center is so connected to the community. The hospital is
here for acute care needs, but it's also here to promote wellness and promote health throughout the
community and I think it's doing an effective job of that. And, you know, if you're if you're ill,
we're here to help but we certainly want to keep you healthy and keep you active, too.
Having been a physician for 30 years, there's lots of great moments. I have a photograph on
the wall in our office of a patient who had a knee replacement and she was able to go to
China and hike on the Great Wall of China after a knee replacement. She wrote on there “thank
you” and “one great knee and one great wall.” It's kind of neat. I have a patient who is an artist,
who made me a beautiful mahogany sculpture that sits in our office. We keep those things in the
office as a reminder of the fun work we get to do and how fortunate we are.