Cornell sports medicine symposium features Iowa’s Ferentz, ‘Miracle Workers’ doctor

MOUNT VERNON — Cornell College will host a sports medicine symposium Tuesday, March 28, featuring Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz, Hawkeye center Brian Ferentz and Dr. Larry Dorr, a Cornell and University of Iowa medical school graduate who is featured on the ABC reality series “Miracle Workers.”

“What is Sports Medicine? A TEAM Perspective” is at 11 a.m. in Kimmel Theatre of Youngker Hall. The symposium will examine sports medicine’s effect on the success of athletes and sports programs from the perspective of a coach, an athlete, an athletic trainer and a team doctor. Besides Kirk Ferentz and Brian Ferentz, the program will feature from the University of Iowa Dr. Ned Amendola, director of sports medicine, and Paul Federici, director of athletic training. The event is open to the public; admission is free.

Dorr, a world leader in joint replacement surgery, will moderate a panel discussion and direct an audience Q&A after the presentations. He is featured on the ABC reality series “Miracle Workers” in a segment scheduled to air tonight (March 20). The show tells how a professional dancer, once hobbled with severe arthritis, returned to the stage six weeks after Dorr performed bilateral hip surgery.

Dorr is founder of the California-based Dorr Institute for Arthritis Research and Education Foundation. In 1994 he started Operation Walk, an international mission in which operating teams travel to developing countries to perform knee and hip replacements and teach native doctors how to perform the operations. Four Cornell students joined the team on trips last year to El Salvador and China, and four more students are scheduled to travel with Operation Walk this year to Nicaragua and Guatemala.

Dorr received the 2005 Humanitarian Award from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons for his work with Operation Walk. He received Cornell’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 2003 and currently serves on the college’s board of trustees.

The sports medicine symposium is sponsored by Dimensions: The Center for the Science and Culture of Healthcare, a new program at Cornell that provides a unique undergraduate education for aspiring health care professionals.