Part 1 of 2. Dr. James Beaty, Dr. David LaVelle, and Dr. James Calandruccio have more than 100 combined years at Campbell Clinic. Beaty first walked through the doors in 1975. LaVelle started his residency in 1982 and spent forty years here. Calandruccio first came in 1954 as a child, when his father Rocco joined the staff.

This episode isn’t about a single procedure or new technology. It’s about getting the stories down before they’re lost: the old guard who trained them, what the clinic was like when it was one building downtown, and the stories about Dr. Willis Campbell himself that have been handed down for generations. Along the way, they talk about what’s changed in fifty years of orthopaedics, what hasn’t, and why they still call it a calling.

Episode recap

00:00 Cold open: “That’s where I was standing when they handed me the knife”
00:40 Introduction
02:45 How each of them found orthopaedics and Campbell Clinic
05:00 Out of the match, and a residency offer over the Christmas holidays
07:00 From 13 physicians in a 1919 downtown building to more than 50 across the Mid-South
11:03 Why 500 to 800 applicants compete for residency spots
14:01 Dr. Calandruccio: from 1954 as a child to joining the staff in 1991
15:07 The old guard: Rocco Calandruccio, Lee Milford, Marcus Stewart, Hugh Smith, Al Ingram, and more
22:48 From command and control to physician independence
23:42 What their generation inherited: mentors, subspecialization, and a technology boom
27:26 What’s stood the test of time: joint replacement, arthroscopy, and femoral nailing
28:49 What would surprise today’s residents, and a hand reattached 30 years earlier
31:29 Referring freely and scrubbing in with partners
33:06 The pillars that haven’t changed since Dr. Campbell
35:13 Giving back to organized orthopaedics
41:03 Medicine as a calling, and the families who made it possible
50:13 The Campbell Clinic family
51:15 Stories: August 16, 1977, in the Baptist emergency room
53:27 $75 a month and Sunday lunches at 869 Madison
55:33 Dr. Willis Campbell: the stories passed down
1:02:00 The textbook that went to war
1:03:15 How the Crippled Children’s Hospital began
1:04:26 The Wilderness Hand Journal Club