Envelope: How many steps does it take to change someone’s life? Just one.
Johnson Box: This hospital does more for people with hip and knee pain than any other in America. With your help, we can do even more.
Dear Mr. Sample,
Officer John Amici could no longer walk the streets of Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. He couldn’t, in fact, walk at all: excruciating knee pain made movement almost impossible. Two knee surgeries, including a partial knee replacement, still left him in pain and able only to hobble with a cane.
Doctors at Hospital for Special Surgery used special MRI techniques, designed to let them “see” the soft tissue around the metallic partial knee replacement, to find and help them fix the problem.
Today, Officer Amici is walking the beat. And his 88-year-old mother, once wheelchair-bound and suffering from severe hip pain, is now back to her regular routine, even taking the bus to socialize at the senior center, after a total hip replacement at Special Surgery.
We need your support to help more people — maybe even you or someone you know — who can’t walk, can’t sit, or have knee or hip pain. As the leading hospital for orthopedics in the country — top ranked in the Northeast by U.S. News & World Report for the past 19 years — we solve some of the most difficult cases in the country.
World Class Care, World Class Research
Since our beginnings during the Civil War, our clinical research and many medical innovations have been key to our ability to help. We were the first orthopedic hospital in America, and remain at the forefront of medical breakthroughs.
For example, in the 1960s and 1970s, we were the first hospital to bring doctors and engineers together, which is now standard practice for developing medical equipment. We were the first to organize specialty clinics and sub-departments to concentrate on specific medical needs, and pioneered the first total knee replacement. From minimally invasive surgery — our techniques reduced the average hospital stay for knee surgery patients by 40% — to computer modeling, our “bench to bedside” approach to applied research has consistently made us a leader in the industry.
Recognized for Our Expertise
- Ranked No. 1 Knee-Hip Orthopedic Hospital by AARP’s Modern Maturity magazine
- Top ranked in the nation for orthopedics and rheumatology by U.S. News & World Report (2009)
- Judged the healthiest hospital in New York State, with an infection rate after hip replacement surgery of 0.1%
- Two-time winner of nursing’s highest honor — Magnet Status Recognition for Nursing Excellence by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC)
- Recipient of first New York State Hospital Patient Safety Award
- Team physicians and trainers for the top New York teams, including the Knicks, Mets, Giants, Nets, Liberty, Red Bulls and many others
Greater Demand, Greater Need
As you know, Special Surgery offers a level of care and expertise far above the norm. In fact, we perform more hip and knee surgeries than any other hospital in the nation, more than 7,600 in 2008. With your support and generosity, we can continue the level of care and research that brings people from all over the world seeking relief and care to Special Surgery every year.
And, with your help, we can care for more people. Just to keep up with demand, we need four new operating rooms over the next three years. And our list of needs, and the patients who seek our help, is growing every day.
Your support will make a life-changing difference in the lives of people who ask nothing but the ability to walk, move and live in a world without pain.
Sincerely,
(SIGNATURES)
P.S. No one does more critically important hip and knee work than Hospital for Special Surgery. With your support, we can do even more.
P.P.S. Want to help Hospital for Special Surgery and its patients as quickly as possible? Visit www.hss.edu/donatenow to donate immediately.
