Some careers are chosen, others are inherited, not through obligation but through inspiration absorbed over a lifetime.
That’s the story of Dr. Allen Prince and his son, Dr. Matt Prince, orthopedic surgeons and colleagues at the Center for Advanced Orthopedics and Sports Medicine. Between them, they have logged more than 50 years of combined practice, and the story of how they got here is as much about a father’s example as it is about medicine.
Before they were colleagues, when they were simply a father and a son, Matt was a six-year-old kid sitting in a hospital with a coloring book while his dad made rounds.
As an orthopedic doctor, Dr. Prince always had a full schedule. Rather than miss time with his children, he brought them along, to the ER, to weekend rounds and to sideline coverage for the Detroit Pistons. Those experiences resulted in a core memory for Matt when he watched his father treat NBA star Chris Webber on the spot, then helped wrap the ankle himself and walked away with an autograph.
“I never felt like he wasn’t there,” Matt says. “He was always at my games, and if there was something at work he could involve me in, he did.”
Those early years didn’t come with a lecture about choosing medicine, they didn’t need to. Matt watched his father treat patients with the kind of care that went beyond the clinical, calling patients on weekends after surgery just to check in and building relationships that spanned decades. When it came time to decide on a career, there was no question about what he wanted to do.
Long before Matt joined the practice, Dr. Prince was already shaping the careers of the surgeons around him. Many of the physicians at the Center for Advanced Orthopedics today were Dr. Allen Prince’s residents, helping to build the careers of young professionals who grew to become his respected colleagues.
Dr. Donahue, Dr. Bartkiw, Dr. Siwiec and, even, Matt himself were all residents under Dr. Prince. Matt trained under his father before going on to complete his fellowship at Mayo Clinic, one of the most competitive orthopedic fellowships in the country, accepting just one fellow per year.
That’s not coincidence, it’s the culture of Center for Advanced Orthopedics, a practice where people don’t just train and learn, they come back.
Today, Center for Advanced Orthopedics serves as a leading orthopedic practice that Dr. Prince helped build, grown from a knee-and-sports clinic into a 9-physician, 60-plus employee center seeing more than 63,000 patients a year.
Dr. Prince, now stepping back from the operating room, sees patients for conservative care and refers surgical cases to Matt, whose specialty in knees and shoulders mirrors his father’s career.
The collaboration now flows in both directions. There are procedures Matt performs today that didn’t exist when his father was operating. Now it’s the son walking over to explain what he’s seeing on the latest imaging, and the father leaning in to learn.
That exchange of knowledge, passing between generations in both directions, may be the truest measure of what they’ve built together.
Happy Father’s Day to the dads who brought their kids to work, and the kids who were inspired by what they saw.