Jack Chandler Hughston had a favorite saying that epitomized his life:
"When you're green, you're growin'. When you're ripe, you're next to
rotten." Hughston, who was born to Madeline and Talmadge Hughston in
Florence, Alabama, on April 17, 1917, and who died at eighty-seven years of
age at his home in Columbus, Georgia, on September 6, 2004, was a
down-to-earth man who dedicated his entire life to "growing." Most
of his growth occurred in Columbus, Georgia, where he moved at the age of
seven when his mother married Edgar Mayo, or "Little Pop," as
Hughston affectionately called his stepfather. Columbus became his permanent
home again after his formal medical training and a stint in the United States
Army Medical Corps during World War II.
Education was the foundation of Hughston's life. For him, growing meant
being educated and educating others. He attended Columbus High School and
Riverside Military Academy and later graduated from Auburn University in 1938.
He received his medical degree from Louisiana State University in 1943. After
an internship at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Hughston served in the
United States Army Medical Corps from 1944 to 1946. In 1946, he became a
National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis Fellow in the orthopaedic training
program at Duke University School of Medicine.
While at Duke, Hughston's interest in the anatomy of the knee began in
earnest. His fascination continued throughout his career and was the stimulus
for his considerable educational and professional efforts. He published many
scientific articles and books on the subject—one of the last was his
book, Knee Ligaments: Injury and Repair, which was published in
1993.
After his fellowship at Duke, he spent two years at the Shriners Hospital
for Crippled Children in Greenville, South Carolina. Dr. J. Leonard Goldner, a
longtime friend and colleague, wrote recently of Hughston's relationship with
J. Warren White, the late chief of the Greenville Shriners Hospital,
"Jack idolized Warren White and followed his aphorisms, clichés,
work habits, and imagination in solving orthopaedic problems during his entire
career."
Jack Hughston idolized one other person more than White—his wife of
sixty-two years, Sarah Hardaway Hughston. They married on June 13, 1942, while
Hughston was a medical student at Louisiana State University, and they
continued to "grow" together until the names Jack and Sarah were
synonymous to friends and colleagues.
On returning to Columbus in 1949 as the first trained orthopaedist in the
community, Hughston opened his office and soon established The Hughston
Clinic. Over the years to come, he became one of the country's most respected
practitioners of orthopaedic surgery and sports medicine. With his trademark
bow tie, he introduced himself to everyone as Jack Hughston. "Doctor
Jack" was beloved by his patients, staff, and colleagues. To residents,
fellows, and his partners, he was a role model, an educator, a scientist, an
innovator, a motivator, and at times an inquisitor and a castigator. Above
all, he was a mentor and a friend.
Hughston was a visionary in the truest sense of the word, but, unlike many
visionaries, he had a tenacity of purpose like few others we will ever know.
His vision emerged in part from the polio epidemic of the late 1940s. In early
1950, he became a leader in establishing the Crippled Children's Clinic of the
Public Health Department in Georgia. Because of his concern for the future of
the children he cared for, he also developed an interest in the welfare of
high-school and college athletes. His involvement with Auburn University
athletics began in 1952 when the late Ralph "Shug" Jordan became
the head football coach at Auburn. Hughston convinced him that the team was in
need of an orthopaedist and that the orthopaedist should be in attendance on
the sidelines at games. Thus began Hughston's role as one of the first team
physicians and as a pioneer in the field of sports medicine. At the same time,
he also began organizing and providing pre-participation screening
examinations and sideline care for high-school athletes in the local area.
This program expanded through the years and is known today as the Institute of
Athletic Health Care and Research. The organization provides yearly screenings
for approximately two thousand high-school athletes in the Columbus area.
Nationally and internationally, Hughston's expertise and reputation grew,
and, in 1965, he became chairman of the Sports Medicine Committee of the
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. He served in that capacity from 1965
through 1975. In 1976, he was named "Mr. Sports Medicine" by his
colleagues and, in 1977, was cited in Sports Illustrated as one of
the world's top three surgeons in his field. He was one of the founders of the
American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) and was an honorary
founder of the National Athletic Trainers' Association. He believed strongly
that orthopaedic surgeons should be part of an international community.
Hughston endeavored to share his knowledge with orthopaedists abroad and was
instrumental in founding the International Society of the Knee, now known as
the International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports
Medicine (ISAKOS). He welcomed the world's orthopaedic community to his clinic
and foundation to exchange ideas. He and others recognized a need for and
started the American Journal of Sports Medicine, of which he was
editor from 1972 through 1989. The Journal became one of his greatest
passions. He envisioned the Journal as a tremendous opportunity to
bring together a vast amount of knowledge in orthopaedic sports medicine and
to create a forum for new advancements in the field. His careful leadership
ensured the growth of the Journal with its promising future and a
continuing legacy of his pioneering efforts. In 1970, Dr. Hughston was
appointed Clinical Professor of Orthopaedics at Tulane University School of
Medicine, and his clinic and the Hughston Sports Medicine Foundation
participated in the training of Tulane orthopaedic residents for more than
twenty years. He received an honorary doctor of science degree from Auburn
University and was an adjunct professor at Auburn University School of
Veterinary Medicine.
Jack Hughston's concept of a foundation for teaching and research in
orthopaedics and sports medicine as a necessary part of the clinical practice
of orthopaedics became a reality when he established the Hughston Sports
Medicine Foundation. The young men and women who trained with him learned how
to examine, listen to, and have respect for the patient and to always remember
that "no knee is so bad that surgery can't make it worse." He
believed that a good rehabilitation program could help many patients avoid
surgery and that if surgery became inevitable it could help speed recovery.
His residents, fellows, and visitors learned from him that research depends on
careful documentation of one's observations. Another result of his lifelong
dedication to orthopaedic sports medicine is the Hughston Sports Medicine
Hospital, the first specialty hospital of its kind, which was built by the
Hospital Corporation of America in Columbus, Georgia, in 1984. In August of
that year, Hughston performed the first surgery at the new hospital, which
thrives today and still bears his name.
Always conscious of the need to "grow" and of what he had to
teach others, Hughston wrote several books and numerous scientific articles
that were published in peer-reviewed medical journals. He is well known for
his work on treating knee injuries; the "Classification of Knee Ligament
Instabilities" was published in two parts in the March 1976 issue of
The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. Hughston is also remembered
for being the first to establish postdoctoral fellowships in sports medicine
that allow physicians who have completed their formal medical training to
increase their exposure to orthopaedic sports medicine. Hughston began this
fellowship program at The Hughston Clinic in 1960, and since that time more
than 250 fellows have completed the program.
Hughston lived with his wife, Sarah, on a 300-acre farm called Hayfields.
It is a place where the Hughstons liked to raise dogs and quail, to garden,
and just to walk. Jack Hughston is survived by his wife, three children, and
three grand-children. He will be missed by all who knew him and learned to
"grow" from him.