Remembering Dr. Ponseti

Knowledge of Club Foot treatments are poor in pediatric medicine, despite having one out of every thousand births with this defect. Tina and I were taking her 20 week ultrasound when we discovered that Patrick had a club foot. The ultrasound specialist was not really aware of the issue, and told us that it was likely that Patrick had Edwards Disease, a fatal genetic trisomy where children rarely live more than 10 days after birth. He was wrong, and sadly he is not alone in the medical profession.

Most children who are born with a club foot have to endure painful surgeries which fail to adequately correct the defect. They spend the rest of their lives with pain in their feet, ankles and legs. They have difficulty standing, walking or running.

Fortunately the world was given Dr. Ponseti. Dr. Ponseti developed a surgery free method that has a 98% success rate. It's simple enough that it can be used in small villages of third world countries with nearly the same success rate. For reasons which are not clear to me, Dr. Ponseti's method was not widely adopted outside of his home state of Iowa until the 1990's. It's sad to think of all the children born in that time who could have been spared the pain of surgeries and the ongoing difficulties brought on by them.

Dr. Ponseti continued to practice medicine into his 90's and up to the week he died. He passed away last week after suffering a stroke at his office.

I am grateful for Dr. Ponseti's work, and the efforts of Dr. Mosca and Dr. J at Seattle's Childrens Hospital for using the Ponseti Method on my son. His club foot is corrected. He is walking without pain. He will likely never even know he had a defective foot.

Dr. Ponseti Passes Away at Age 95