On March 6, 2014 the orthopedics world lost a sports medicine pioneer. Frank Jobe, M.D., co-founder of the famed Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic, passed away in Santa Monica, California at the age of 88. Dr. Jobe’s survivors include his wife, Beverly; his sons, Christopher, Meredith, Cameron and Blair; and eight grandchildren.
James Bradley, M.D., a good friend of Dr. Jobe’s for more than 25 years, told OTW, “Frank Jobe was a humble, serene soul who could flat out operate better than anyone I’ve ever seen. He made even the most difficult cases look like a gentle waltz with those big size 9 hands. One day in 1988 (pre MRIs) I asked Dr. Jobe how he knew that the ulnar collateral ligament in a certain MLB pitcher was incompetent. He said ‘sensitive fingers and thousands of physical exams, ’ and just smiled. This man touched the lives of so many surgeons and athletes with a soft encouraging word, kind smile and wink and by basically redefining the surgical approaches to the shoulder and elbow in the overhead athlete.”
Frank Jobe was born in 1925 in Greensboro, North Carolina. After graduating from Collegedale Academy, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and went on to serve in World War II as a medical staff sergeant in the 101st Airborne Division. He was captured and held for a short time during the Battle of the Bulge; he went on to earn the Bronze Star Medal, the Combat Medical Badge, and the Glider Badge. Christopher Jobe, M.D., says of his dad’s military experience, “My dad was so impressed with the coolheaded doctors who had to care for patients with bullets flying everywhere. These were the moments that the idea of becoming a surgeon took hold. During the war, dad also volunteered to be a paratrooper because it would mean an extra $10 per month for him to send home to his mother. He was always a great family man.”
“Dad did discover how to get a decent night’s sleep in the military. He was with our troops on a boat in the turbulent North Atlantic…people were getting sick everywhere. When the rest of the medical corps went to their berths at night dad volunteered to clean up and then he slept on the OR table or a stretcher and actually got some peace.”
Returning to the U.S., Dr. Jobe graduated from La Sierra University in Riverside, California, and obtained a medical degree from Loma Linda University. He was a general practitioner for three years, and then completed a residency in orthopedic surgery and in 1964 joined with Dr. Robert Kerlan as founder of the Southwestern Orthopaedic Medical Group in Los Angeles. It was renamed the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in 1985.
“Humble” and “understated” are words that many people use to describe Frank Jobe, including his son, Christopher. He tells OTW, “He was a soft spoken, very kind man. He never reacted to anything sensitive immediately…he would walk away and think about things. At one point my daughter was considering becoming a religious study major. The professor told her that the goal of life in Buddhism is to seek happiness and that the most effective way to achieve that was to be kind to others. I told my dad he would make a good Buddhist.”
The Tommy John aspect of Dr. Jobe’s life is widely known. By performing the first reconstruction of the ulna collateral ligament of the elbow, Dr. Jobe saved the career of famed pitcher Tommy John, not to mention countless pitchers after him. Dr. Christopher Jobe tells OTW, “He was the most natural orthopedic surgeon I have ever watched. He wasn’t one to start with theory and then come up with solution. He went directly from problem to solution; it was often the rest of us who sought out the theory. Everyone talks about the Tommy John surgery, but I think the greater intellectual feat was the surgery on Orel Hershiser. Dad worked out that extra stretch in the front of the shoulder that was responsible for problems in the back of the shoulder. He had a deeply intuitive understanding of biomechanics.”
Neal ElAttrache, M.D. is a sports medicine specialist with the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles, California, and is chairman of the Board of that facility. He told OTW, “One time we were doing a Tommy John surgery on a baseball player from Japan; there were a number of Japanese surgeons there that day to observe Frank’s technique. Frank Jobe was left handed, but this was not widely known. He sat down at the OR table and said to the interpreter, ‘Tell them I’m going to do this one for them left handed.’ They thought he was serious; he said, ‘Do you think I should tell them? They do know I’m kidding, right?”
“Frank was the most talented surgeon I have ever seen. When I joined the practice in 1990 he had begun to see that much of what had been done open probably could be done arthroscopically with less invasiveness. So rather than be like his colleagues who stuck with open surgery, Frank embraced arthroscopy and encouraged me to embrace it. For a guy who made his reputation as an open shoulder and elbow surgeon to get up at meetings and say, ‘arthroscopy is better’ was really something.”
Dr. ElAttrache, the surgeon ultimately selected by Frank Jobe to perform his arthroscopic rotator cuff repair, says, “There were big name open surgery legends at these meetings, and Frank was kind enough to protect me when things got rough. At that time the Shoulder and Elbow Society was much smaller; I had just been inducted and my colleagues and I were debating open versus arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. We were having our rear ends hung out to dry when Frank stood up, made the ‘time out’ sign, and announced that he had had both of his shoulders done arthroscopically. That moment completely changed the landscape for surgeons trying new things.”
The supremely talented and kind Frank Jobe will be missed by all whose lives he graced.
The family asks that in lieu of flowers those wishing to honor Dr. Frank Jobe make a donation to his orthopedic research foundation. The Frank Jobe Foundation//326 S. State Street//Los Angeles, CA//90033.
