When I first started my surgical practice, I was part of a group of talented surgeons. My pal and common assistant at that time was a great guy named Steve, who was a few years older than I. We had a natural affinity and were similar in temperment, so we tended, more and more, to work together.
 
Steve and I were associates, not partners. That means that we shared office space, and expenses, but not revenues. Although, like many surgeons just starting out, I was on salary at first (in my case for six months). 
 
Well, Steve was a natural diagnostician (those are born, not made) and a pretty damn good surgeon, in his own right. He was so good, that many years later, I asked him to do the surgery on my mother, when she needed to have her left hip replaced. We were thick as thieves and very attuned to each other’s rhythms in surgery. So we were a very good team indeed.
 
Thing about Steve was that he wouldn’t do surgery on just anyone. They had to prove to him that they had failed at all conservative treatments first and that their pain was unrelieved by any lesser treatment. In that way, he strongly influenced me and tempered my impatience to jump to the surgical approach, an understandable impulse in a young guy who has just spent his youth preparing to be a surgeon and believes in his ability to do anything.
 
One of the senior men in the group, Art, a brilliant hand surgeon, whose like I have never seen, before or since, took me aside one day and gave me some counter-intuitive advice I took to heart.
 
“Listen, Bill,” he told me. “I know you want to do a lot of surgery. But be patient. Don’t jump right at surgery, first thing. You’ll only scare them away.  Instead, try everything else first. Brace them, give them medicine, injections if they need them. Make them ASK you, or better yet, BEG you for surgery, before you do it.”
 
“Huh?” I said, brilliantly.
 
“It’s simple,” he said. “People and their referring doctors want a surgeon who isn’t “knife happy.” They want to know that you’re operating on them because you don’t have a choice, not just because you can.” 
 
“But, how can I build a surgical practice like that?” I asked. 

He smiled and told me a profound truth, that I remember to this day. “That’s the irony of conservative treatment,” he said. “If you try NOT to do surgery, you’ll end up doing even MORE than you can handle. 

“You see, people want to know they can trust you. They need to feel they can believe what you tell them. If you treat them conservatively and help them, when they REALLY need surgery and can’t avoid it, they’ll come back to YOU, because they trust you.”
 
I admit I was skeptical at first, but this guy was not only a brilliant surgeon, who I greatly admired, but a highly successful practioner, who had an enormous practice. So I decided he must know what he’s talking about. I resolved to follow his advice and see what happened.
 
Well, the rest, as they, say is history. I did what he advised and lo and behold, my practice burgeoned.  In fact, it perfectly tracked Art’s own successful practice, just trailing his profile by eight years. I was a believer.
 
And over time, I realized that it was not only smart business, but it was correct ethically and morally, as well. In fact, it’s just really good Medicine. 
 
Surgery should be the last or the best option, not the first choice of treatment, in most cases. The object is to let the body heal itself, if it can, and only intervene surgically when there is no other choice, or when that will yield the best result. 
 
In other words, avoid the unnecessary surgery. And do the best surgery possible, when that is the best option. 
 
This has been the guiding principle of my life for all these many years. And it remains so today, as demonstrated in my newest healing program, HOW TO AVOID KNEE SURGERY, which you can get here, at  http://drbillsclinic.com/avoid_knee_surgery.html
 
With treatments drawn from across the medical spectrum, conventional, alternative and complementary, most knee pain will respond to some combination of these proven remedies. See for yourself and unleash your body’s own healing potential. Relieve your knee pain at http://drbillsclinic.com/avoid_knee_surgery.html
 
Til next time, my friend, be well.
 
Yours for a pain-free tomorrow,
 
Dr. Bill

P.S. For DR. BILL’S LITTLE GREEN BOOK ON ELIMINATING KNEE PAIN, a concise, but complete handbook on the root causes and the various options for treating knee pain, go to http://drbillsclinic.com/eliminate_knee_pain.html
 
P.P.S. For DR. BILL’S PAIN-FREE PROGRAM: EXERCISES TO PREVENT OR ELIMINATE KNEE PAIN, please go to
 http://drbillsclinic.com/exercise_eliminate.html
 
P.P.P.S. For the giant, comprehensive ADVANCED MASTERS’ COURSE: HOW TO ELIMINATE KNEE PAIN–ONCE & FOR ALL!, everything you need to know on causes and solutions for knee pain and the complete exercise program, too, go to
 http://drbillsclinic.com/advanced_masters.html
 
FREE BONUS CD with any order: THE HEALING POWER OF POSITIVE PAIN PERCEPTION
 
Copyright, 2008 by William Thomas Stillwell, MD
All rights reserved

Well, Christmas is just a week from tonight.  Unbelievable. I’ve expounded before about the Stillwell Theory of Seasonal Relativity. 
 
In brief, for the uninitiated, this theory states that time progressively accelerates, relative to an observer’s proximity to the Christmas Holidays.  In other words, time subjectively seems to speed up from around April, through the rest of the year, hitting a peak from August through December. 
 
I mean, once you reach Halloween, you blink, and it’s Thanksgiving. Blink again, it’s Christmas, then New year’s Eve. 
 
Then suddenly, on January first of the New Year, it’s like the brakes were thrown on–time is suddenly slowed to a crawl, not to speed up again until late Spring and Summer. Just look at how long it takes to arrive at Valentine’s Day. Seems like it takes forever.
 
And of course, the older you get, the faster and faster it all seems to go. Well, it seems that way to me, anyway. But math was always my worst subject…. 
 
There really is a scientific explanation for this subjective phenomenon, though. The older you get, the smaller the fraction of your entire life experience is each new experience. That’s why the two month summer vacation you enjoyed as a kid seemed to stretch forever, but it flashes by as an adult. Two months is a whole lot bigger fraction of the whole when you’re only ten years old, than when you’re fifty.
 
But now that we’re in the week before Christmas, it’s all going at warp speed. And it doesn’t help that I’m spending a lot of time running up and down the East Coast, to prepare the Northern Command and transport our cats. I STILL have to get all that last minute shopping done, even though I DID start during the summer.
 
With all the extra stresses of the Holiday Season, many people have emailed me with their complaints of sore backs and aching knees. Not surprising, though, is it? Everyone is running around, on their feet longer, shopping, going to office parties, shopping, and more shopping, despite the economy. 
 
And the physical stress is compounded by the extra mental and emotional stress, which transforms into biological stress. This kind of stress makes any inflammation in the body worse and reduces the body’s immune system, as well.
 
So, what to do? Well, even though it’s very tough this time of year, you have to keep up with your exercises.  If you have knee pain, my PAIN-FREE PROGRAM (click here:  http://drbillsclinic.com/exercise_eliminate.html )  is ideal for this, because it provides a MENU of proven, effective exercises, from which you can choose.
 
But when time is of the essence, I’d recommend that you concentrate on HACK SQUATS, with the heaviest weight you can handle, to meet the criteria that I outline, and the specially modified HINDU SQUATS I describe at  http://drbillsclinic.com/exercise_eliminate.html
 
You can also do simple isometric QUAD SETS, while standing in line at stores, or at every red light, if driving. If you’re at a train station, lean against the columns and do WALL SITTING–effective, but inconspicuous in public.
 
And to boost your immune system and increase your strength and stability, try the life-enhancing topical cream that increases your own endogenous growth hormone,  safely and within physiological limits, like I do:   http://drbillsclinic.com/trans_d_tropin.html 
 
If you try to do these few things, every day, despite being in the very midst of the Christmas Countdown, you will feel better, be less likely to get colds  and flu, and will relieve your knee pain. Try these methods and see what I mean.
 
Til next time, my friend, be well. 
 
Yours for a pain-free tomorrow,
 
Dr. Bill

P.S. For DR. BILL’S LITTLE GREEN BOOK ON ELIMINATING KNEE PAIN, a concise, but complete handbook on the root causes and the various options for treating knee pain, go to http://drbillsclinic.com/eliminate_knee_pain.html
 
P.P.S. For DR. BILL’S PAIN-FREE PROGRAM: EXERCISES TO PREVENT OR ELIMINATE KNEE PAIN, please go to
 http://drbillsclinic.com/exercise_eliminate.html
 
P.P.P.S. For the giant, comprehensive ADVANCED MASTERS’ COURSE: HOW TO ELIMINATE KNEE PAIN–ONCE & FOR ALL!, everything you need to know on causes and solutions for knee pain and the complete exercise program, too, go to
 http://drbillsclinic.com/advanced_masters.html
 
FREE BONUS CD with any order: THE HEALING POWER OF POSITIVE PAIN PERCEPTION
 
Copyright, 2008 by William Thomas Stillwell, MD
All rights reserved

 In the Fall of 1973 I was a straight surgical intern at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. I had barely survived my first two months of training, given my gross disorganization, inefficiency and sheer terror that I would kill some poor patient by what I didn’t know. 
 
But gradually, apparently by osmosis, I learned what I needed to know, somehow developed patterns of ruthless efficiency (quite contrary to my nature) and logical analysis that remain with me to this day. Against all odds, I had survived and I had evolved into a pretty competent fledgling surgeon.
 
Having recovered from the prolonged anxiety attack that characterized my first two months, I looked forward to my new assignment at the local private hospital. 
 
What many people don’t realize is that interns are “farmed out” to a number of different affiliate hospitals during their training. This was to provide us with different perspectives and adequate clinical experiences, and provide those hospitals with the closest thing to slave labor,  since the Civil War.

So there I was, in my freshly startched white uniform, as I walked into the hospital’s surgical ward for the first time. As I walked into the Nurses’ Station for the first time, an elderly nurse, all in white, even stockings, with a stiff, starched nuses cap (nurses wore caps in those days) first noticed me and cried out, “Doctor on Deck!” 
 
And with that, everyone currently seated, all the nurses and orderlies writing or reading charts, who were in the Nurses’ Station, immediately jumped up in unison and stood at attention, facing me!
 
I naturally wondered who they were standing for and turned around to see who it was that commanded this almost military reaction. I figured, I should probably be at attention, too. Imagine my surprise when there was no one else there.
 
I was pretty dumfounded, that’s for sure. It never even occurred to me that they were standing for ME. The elderly nurse came over and took me in hand, and said, “Welcome, Doctor.” Wow. I couldn’t believe it. “Hi. I’m Bill Stillwell,” I said.  “Just call me Bill.”
 
“No,” she said, “you’re Doctor Stillwell, now.”  Apparently, I was expected to be a bit more formal than I was used to. With that, she turned to the other nurses, mostly female, but with a few males and orderlies, as well, and said, “This is Dr. Stillwell, our new intern.”
 
Much to my surprise, no one burst out laughing at me. Apparently, they were quite serious.

Now, I’d always been a pretty informal guy. Airs of any kind were not tolerated in my family or by my friends, and despite my abilities, I completely accepted these values. They were part of me and my world view. It would never have even dawned on me that I would or should command this level of deference. I mean, I was still a wet-behind-the-ears, junior doctor in training, hardly worthy of this display, and, to my mind, hadn’t earned their respect. So this was a brand new experience. In short, I was in shock.
 
The senior nurse smiled at me and took me aside. She advised me that I was in charge now, so it was appropriate that my subordinates show me respect. I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. This was obviously someone’s idea of a joke. I had no idea what I was doing and said so. The nurse said, “You know more than you think…”
 
Over the next couple of months, especially at night, she guided me, by asking innocently phrased questions that gave me an idea of what I should be doing, but without ever undermining my “authority.” We both knew that I was clueless, but she was very adept at teaching me, without seeming to. That old nurse taught me plenty and I owed her a lot. We both knew it.
 
At the end of my rotation, I thanked her for all her help and guidance. She smiled and told me that I had become a good doctor. “At least you listened,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I?” I replied. She was the only one of the two of us who had any idea of what they were doing. But apparently, some prior interns had resented her help and had refused to listen. Ego, I guess. Damn fools….
 
From that time onward, I was always a staunch nurse’s advocate. I never forgot that debt of gratitude. I don’t even remember her name, but I will never forget what she did for me and for the thousands of patients that my life eventually touched. 
 
The moral of this story is that you have to be open to help, when it’s offered. When you open yourself up to someone who has been there, to someone who KNOWS, then, with luck, you might actually learn something. That’s why, when I wrote my LITTLE GREEN BOOK FOR ELIMINATING KNEE PAIN, which you can get at this link: http://drbillsclinic.com/eliminate_knee_pain.html   I wrote from the perspective of a surgeon AND a patient, who has undergone knee surgery, myself.  I also made sure to speak in your own language, NOT “medicalese.” 
 
I made it the hallmark of all my healing programs to get rid of the mystery and the obfuscating vocabulary, so you can access the underlying principles, which are actually pretty simple, once you understand them. You see, if you know WHY to do something, you’re much more likely to do what I tell you. And therefore, much more likley to get better, FAST.
 
So, if you want to relieve your knee pain and restore your function, then click here for FAST RELIEF:
http://drbillsclinic.com/eliminate_knee_pain.html
 
Have a great weekend, my friend. And be well. Talk to you again next week.
 
Yours for a pain-free tomorrow,
 
Dr. Bill
 
P.S. For DR. BILL’S LITTLE GREEN BOOK ON ELIMINATING KNEE PAIN, a concise, but complete handbook on the root causes and the various options for treating knee pain, go to http://drbillsclinic.com/eliminate_knee_pain.html
 
P.P.S. For DR. BILL’S PAIN-FREE PROGRAM: EXERCISES TO PREVENT OR ELIMINATE KNEE PAIN, please go to
 http://drbillsclinic.com/exercise_eliminate.html
 
P.P.P.S. For the giant, comprehensive ADVANCED MASTERS’ COURSE: HOW TO ELIMINATE KNEE PAIN–ONCE & FOR ALL!, everything you need to know on causes and solutions for knee pain and the complete exercise program, too, go to
 http://drbillsclinic.com/advanced_masters.html
 
FREE BONUS CD with any order: THE HEALING POWER OF POSITIVE PAIN PERCEPTION
 
Copyright, 2008 by William Thomas Stillwell, MD
All rights reserved

One of the benefits of living in Central Florida is that you lose any fear of lightning. Why? Well, Orlando and the surrounding environs together are the Lightning Capital of the USA. I forget how many lightning strikes have been recorded in a year but it’s in the multiple
thousands! I’ve never heard a satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon, but there it is.
 
When we first moved here, I couldn’t believe it. Every afternoon in the summer, dark clouds rolled in, and thunder and lightning were the order of the day. This area has very funny weather anyway–it’s not uncommon to have a torrential downpour, I mean, so heavy a rain you can’t see two feet in front of you–and have bright sunshine across the street. It’s also not uncommon to see a downpour with the sun still shining. Never saw the like in Long Island, that’s for sure.
 
But the lightning is really impressive. It’s most common when it’s been very hot, in the high nineties. Once it starts, the strikes come fast and furious, brilliant in their intensity. If I’m driving down here during a storm, I drive with the sun visor down, so I’m not startled or
dazzled by a sudden flash in the dark. Lightning bolts are not only bright, but they’re HOT, 50,000 degrees hot, five times as hot as the surface of the sun! No kidding–look it up. That’s why they tend to blow up whatever they hit.

I actually saw a lightning bolt arc down, hit a palm tree in my own back yard and with a really loud CRACK! the top of the tree EXPLODED! At those temperatures, the water in the tree is instantly vaporized, turned to superheated steam, which rapidly expands, like a bullet being fired, or a bomb detonating, and literally blows the tree apart.
 
The good news is, once you’ve seen the lightning, it’s already missed you. You see it as often as we do, and you get desensitized to it. But it wasn’t always that way….
 
Toward the end of my residency in surgery, I went on a number of interviews to various programs, to see where I wanted to go for my orthopaedic training. I had already met and hooked up with my wife, whom I had married at the end of my internship. So she and her
mother (who I got along with very, very well) and I drove up to Culpepper, Virginia, to meet with a young attending orthopaedist, who had been finishing his training, while I finished my first year at MCV.
 
This doctor, in fact, was one of three men I had met at MCV who had convinced me that I should go into orthopaedics, after I realized that I wasn’t really cut out for cardiac surgery. He and the others were such competent, but really friendly and laid-back guys, that I felt at home with them. I guess I thought that if orthopaedics made guys like them happy, it would probably make me happy, too. They looked like they were having fun all the time. And when I was with them and they were teaching me, I had fun too. So, in a very real way, this guy and his pals were responsible for recruiting me into orthopaedics, which I never would have guessed that I’d like when I was in medical school.
 
Anyway, I really liked this guy, so when he invited me to come up to see the practice he’d joined in Culpepper, to see if I’d like to join them, when I finished my training, I said OK. Well, as it happened, it was night by the time I found the town and it had started to rain.
Then the wind picked up and the rain came down harder. I could barely see and had to drive ever more slowly, for safety’s sake. And then, the thunder began to boom, like the hammer of Thor, and the most spectacular light show of my life was in full swing, as great bolts of lightning flashed and crackled all around us! The town was at a high elevation and the lightning seemed so close to us, horizontal flashes in front, behind me, and on every side, dazzling me with their brilliance, that I literally feared for our lives! It seemed as though we’d be fried any minute. I never saw anything like this, before or since. Kind of put a damper on my desire to move there, I can tell you.
 
At the time, it seemed like we survived by the Grace of God, alone. But gradually, the flashes subsided. And of course, we did survive. And I didn’t join that group. But I always remember that one amazing night, whenever I see a flash of lightning. And until I moved to Orlando, I was pretty “gun-shy,” where lightning was concerned. 

But, as the saying goes, always do what you fear. So after five years here, I’ve become pretty inured to the flash of lightning. I finally accepted that if it hit me, I’d never even know it, so I stopped worrying about it.  Now, I actually enjoy the show, especially the cloud to
cloud horizontal flashes that light up the sky, like a great celestial spectacle, just for my amusement. 

In my career, it was much the same thing. In the beginning, I worried about everything. To me, everything was a potential disaster. I was tense all the time. With time and experience, however, I learned to treat what I could, as best I could, and not worry about things I could not control. Fortunately, I also learned quite a bit over the years, not only from the surgeries I did, but the judgment I developed from the thousands and thousands of patients I was able to treat non-surgically, too. This is in the scheme of things:  I was much more aggressive when I started my practice than I was when I ended it. Then, I not only knew what to do, but more important, what NOT to do. And now, I’ve put all that accumulated accumen into my LITTLE GREEN BOOK FOR ELIMINATING KNEE PAIN.  See it at http://drbillsclinic.com/eliminate_knee_pain.html   for all the methods you can use from across the entire treatment spectrum to relieve your knee pain for good. There’s nothing else like it out there. So get yours today….And now, it’s available as a full length audio CD, as well, so you can listen to it while you drive.
 
Til next time, my friend, be well.
 
Yours for a pain-free tomorrow,
 
Dr. Bill
 
P.S. For DR. BILL’S LITTLE GREEN BOOK ON ELIMINATING KNEE PAIN, a concise, but complete handbook on the root causes and the various options for treating knee pain, go to http://drbillsclinic.com/eliminate_knee_pain.html
 
P.P.S. For DR. BILL’S PAIN-FREE PROGRAM: EXERCISES TO PREVENT OR ELIMINATE KNEE PAIN, please go to
 http://drbillsclinic.com/exercise_eliminate.html
 
P.P.P.S. For the giant, comprehensive ADVANCED MASTERS’ COURSE: HOW TO ELIMINATE KNEE PAIN–ONCE & FOR ALL!, everything you need to know on causes and solutions for knee pain and the complete exercise program, too, go to
 http://drbillsclinic.com/advanced_masters.html

FREE BONUS CD with any order: THE HEALING POWER OF POSITIVE PAIN PERCEPTION
 
Copyright, 2008 by William Thomas Stillwell, MD
All rights reserved