Dear Josh,
So let’s pretend that you REALLY did want to join us at the Darwin Martin House for National Shoulder and Elbow Week on May 17. There’s still this tiny little elephant in the room. You know, your appearance fee? I understand it runs between 125k and 200k.
Geesh. Well, here’s the thing. We kind of have a salary cap of our own and I am not sure we can stay under the cap with that number.
Before you walk away, please hear me out for a second. You see, we are a nonprofit. All this money is getting pumped back into educating the shoulder and elbow doctors of the future and researching the latest treatments that will speed recovery from injuries like you’ve had over the years. You remember those right?
Wouldn’t it have been great if that elbow healed up twice as fast? Maybe someday that will be the case. But it’s not going to happen without the type of research that the ASESF is funding.
A $125k chunk of change could easily fund 12 seed grants from the ASESF. What’s a seed grant you ask?
It’s a $10k grant that gets a researcher started on an idea that might blossom into something bigger. The ASESF funds these grants every year for young researchers or researchers starting a new line of work on some vexing problem in the shoulder or elbow. In fact, I won one of these grants a few years ago that turned into two publications and built the foundation for a larger $50k grant project that may change how infections are treated.
Or $125k might cover a full year of salary, benefits and malpractice insurance for a shoulder and elbow fellow. A fellow is the last year of specialized training after the 12 years of regular school, 4 years of college 4 years of medical school and 5 years of residency that it takes to become an orthopedic surgeon. Most fellows are at least. 33 years old when they finish but they are just getting started on a career in shoulder and elbow surgery.
So, by the time the typical wide receiver is out of the NFL, shoulder and elbow surgeons are just getting started. That’s how much training it takes to ensure that people get good shoulder and elbow care. In fact many NFL doctors have completed ASES fellowships to launch their careers.
Those fellows will go on to take care of a lot of people and a lot of problems over their careers. Over a 35-year career one shoulder and elbow surgeon may operate on over 15,000 people and non operatively treat over 100,000. You can see how that $125,000 can blossom!
So I apologize, but we can’t do the appearance fee. Maybe that’s a deal breaker. Regardless, we will be waiting with cutout Josh and welcome you with open arms (shoulder,elbows and all) to NSEW 2024 on May 17. Hope to see you there!
