Come to Rotary this week and see lots of information on our Rotary Club Year in Review. Rotary Club President Barbara Wry is showing pictures of our SOS project and others. There will be a new officer induction as well. Be sure to join us!
Our club celebrated our 98th anniversary with a cake! Teresa Maley announced some of the plans being prepared for our 100th anniversary as a Rotary Club.
Rotarian Chuck Frazier was recognized at our last club meeting with a special gift from Sam Purohit. During Chuck's recognition, Sam said that Churck took him along to the Topeka Rotary Club, where in honor of 2013-2104 Rotary International President Ron Burton a special meeting was held in presence of all living Past District Governors of District 5710. Chuck introduced Sam to all PDG's and RI President Ron Burton. This year also when RI President Ravi Ravindran 2015-16 was honored at Kansas zone meeting Chuck introduced Sam to the district dignitaries. Let us wish Chuck the best of everything in the future.
Rotarian Julia Pyle presented as our program Andre Z. Oulai, MD, an orthopedic surgeon new at Newman Orthopedics and Sports Medicine who has been practicing for 18 years. He talked to our club about hip and knee replacement surgery, and said that pain control is the biggest thing they attack now after surgery. Utilizing multi-modal pain control, they attack the pain from several directions before it is felt by the patient after surgery, and they gain much better pain control now than in the past. Patients recover much more quickly. Pain control and other advancements will enable hip and knee joint surgery in the future to actually be conducted on an out-patient basis.
Another practice that enables patients to recover more quickly is Joint Camp. This is a practice of health preparation and surgery as a group of patients needing the same procedure. The community of patients get the same treatment together, and they encourage each other through the whole process.
Dr. Oulai even went so far as to say that because of stem cell research and other advances in health, in another generation joint replacement will not even need a surgeon like him.
Monica Duncan and Mike Wise from the 27th Class of Leadership Emporia, and John Koelsch from the Lyon County Sheriff Department, talked about how the Respect the Wheels! program was developed in their Leadership Emporia class, and how it continues now and in the future.
Funded with a total of $11,779 from various sources, the Leadership Emporia class developed the Respect the Wheels! program to develop awareness of both bicyclists and motorists following the rules of the road and to respect each other on the road. The class created awareness through radio, newspaper, billboards, brochures, window stickers, getting information into elementary schools, Facebook, bike classes, Keep it Safe Summer table and a table at the Dirty Kanza. The program has been well-received with lots of inquiries from visitors from other towns and states.
In order to sustain the progrm into the future, the Respect the Wheels! program is being transitioned to the Multi-Use Planning Path (MUPP) Board, which was started in 2006. MUPP recently promoted safety for bicyclists in the Bike Across Kansas as they traveled through Lyon County, and the group is planning to open a nature trail along the Cottonwood River between Peter Pan Park and Soden's Grove. Continued funding for the Respect the Wheels! program could possibly come from sales of signage program materials to other communities and states who import the program, and possibly from KDOT funding. Their current priority with the program is training of law enforcement officers of the rules of the road to help create a strong enforcement component.
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