Dr. Peter Fowler looks at the leg of Ainsley Tomczyk, 15, June 11, 1997, at the Fowler Kennedy Sports Medicine Clinic in London, Ont.Edward Regan/The Globe and Mail
As a young elite swimmer, Peter Fowler was not bothered by knee trouble.
But he later helped many athletes who were.
An arthroscopic-knee-surgery pioneer, he treated Hockey Hall of Famers Steve Yzerman and Eric Lindros (albeit not for knee issues), former World Cup skiing legends Todd Brooker and Laurie Graham, countless other household names and working stiffs who just competed recreationally.
Dr. Fowler founded the Fowler Kennedy Sports Medicine Clinic, one of North America’s largest such facilities, at what is now Western University in London, Ont., where he died Nov. 16 of COVID-19 compounded by Parkinson’s disease. He was 84.
In addition to being a world-leading orthopedic surgeon, he was an internationally renowned medical educator and researcher. He also headed several Canadian and international sports-medicine groups and earned a slew of honours, including membership in the Order of Canada (2018).
“Certainly in Ontario, if not in Canada and then internationally, I think his contribution [to sports medicine] is just unparalleled,” said Sarah Padfield, the Fowler Kennedy clinic’s executive director.
Peter (Pete) John Fowler was born Sept. 25, 1938 in Woodstock, Ont., near London. He was the eldest of John (Jack) Fowler and Ruth (née Shugg) Fowler’s three children. Jack Fowler was a pharmacist and Ruth Fowler was a homemaker.
A 100-metre butterfly specialist, Pete swam in two Pan American Games men’s 4x100-metre individual medley relays. He was only 16 when he missed the podium in Mexico City in 1955. But his Canadian crew earned a silver medal in Chicago in 1959 as the United States took gold and Mexico garnered bronze.
Pete obtained a medical degree from Western, where he earned top men’s swimmer and overall athlete awards, and completed his residency at the University of Michigan. He was encouraged to do so by Jack Kennedy a London-based orthopedic surgeon and Western professor who had treated him for swimmer’s shoulder – soreness resulting from repetitive use.
Dr. Kennedy, who ran a fledgling Western clinic dedicated to the emerging field of sports medicine, selected him as the first resident in the university’s new orthopedic surgery program. After his surgical residency at Duke University, Dr. Fowler returned to Western, served as a general orthopedic surgeon and worked part-time in the clinic with Dr. Kennedy, initially treating varsity athletes and intramural competitors.
Expanding his mentor’s work, Dr. Fowler launched the not-for-profit Fowler Kennedy clinic, a multidisciplinary centre that offers physiotherapy, massage therapy and other services to Western students and the public. The clinic’s professionals also serve as medical and health professors at the university.
“It’s quite a unique model for this type of clinic in Canada,” Ms. Padfield said.
In 2002, Mr. Yzerman became the first professional hockey player to receive a knee realignment, known as a high tibial osteotomy (HTO), courtesy of Dr. Fowler. The realignment enabled Mr. Yzerman to play parts of three more National Hockey League seasons.
“[Dr. Fowler] was a giant,” Mr. Lindros said.
Dr. Fowler mainly referred Mr. Lindros, whose career was hampered by concussions, to other specialists. But Mr. Lindros donated $5-million to the Fowler Kennedy clinic.
“He was always about what’s best for the person,” Mr. Lindros said. “And if it was him that did the work or someone else, he couldn’t care less – as long as it was done correctly and done in a quick fashion.”
Dr. Fowler’s dry humour and self-deprecating manner provided comfort during difficult times.
“You go into a medical situation, you’re hurting, you need help and he would change the tone of the conversation and make you feel like: There’s gonna be progress,” Mr. Lindros said.
Ms. Graham received an ankle-tendon repair and arthroscopic knee surgery from Dr. Fowler, who served as the doctor for Canada’s men’s and women’s ski teams.
“The second time was sort of a cleanup of my knee cartilage in the fall pre-season,” Ms. Graham said. “I had a pretty successful season that year and, in interviews, I would attribute it to the work he had done. What was funny was, I was misnaming it as having had an orthoscope, and he gently corrected me [and advised] to call it by the right name – arthroscopic surgery. [That] shows he was a detail guy.”
(Arthroscopic surgery is a minimally invasive procedure involving an arthroscope – a long, thin telescope affixed with a camera – and other tools used to repair tissue. The arthroscope projects the inside of the knee onto a video screen.)
Mr. Brooker estimates that, since 1979, he has undergone 27 or 28 diverse knee procedures, with Dr. Fowler performing most of them. Two weeks before the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, Mr. Brooker crashed in a World Cup race at Kitzbuehel, Austria. Dr. Fowler performed arthroscopic surgery in London, helping Mr. Brooker to place a respectable ninth in Sarajevo.
“Without his help and all the other staff that he brought with him from London [as Canada’s Olympic chief medical officer], I never would have raced in the Olympics,” Mr. Brooker said. “That turned out to be my only Olympic competition. I was injured in ′88.”
Dr. Fowler was also Canada’s chief medical officer at the 1990 and 1998 Commonwealth Games and served as the team doctor for Western’s football team, among other varsity squads, and as a consultant for Major League Baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays.
Paul Beeston, who became a two-time Jays president, overseeing their World Series-winning clubs in 1992 and 1993, joined the club in 1976 with help from Dr. Fowler. Don McDougall, president of Labatt Breweries, the team’s first owner, was a Fowler family neighbour and hired Mr. Beeston.
“My dad facilitated a meeting between Paul and Don in our backyard, by the pool, where they got talking,” Dr. Fowler’s son Cameron said. “The rest is history.”
Mr. Beeston also served for five years as president of Major League Baseball.
While working with teams, Dr. Fowler emphasized teamwork. He trained 77 orthopedic surgical fellows from around the world in London, wrote 43 book chapters and authored and co-authored many groundbreaking, peer-reviewed research reports.
Because of one study’s findings, Canadian and other surgeons discontinued arthroscopic surgeries designed to clear knees of debris because the procedures have no long-term benefits.
“We just stopped doing a useless operation,” said Dr. Robert Litchfield, a co-author of that study and former student who succeeded him as the Fowler Kennedy clinic’s medical director.
Another study’s results, published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, determined that an HTO could prevent or delay a knee replacement. Both studies’ findings have saved millions of dollars worth of health care costs, Dr. Litchfield said.
Eventually, Dr. Fowler did have knee trouble, owing to hereditary bowleggedness, and received a realignment from Ned Amendola, another protégé turned Fowler Kennedy clinic and Western colleague, and also one of the HTO study co-authors.
“He was a very low-key, loyal, humble person – which is not usually the way people get to the top of the food chain,” Dr. Amendola said, referring to their profession.
Dr. Fowler was one of only three Canadians to serve as president of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, succeeding Dr. Kennedy and preceding Dr. Amendola.
But he never boasted about his famous patients or many accomplishments.
Unlike most of his contemporaries, Dr. Fowler preferred to tout young surgeons, said Dr. Amendola, who recalled being introduced as “the next big thing in sports medicine” as his mentor urged patients to see him because he was “getting old.”
After retiring from the Fowler Kennedy clinic and Western in 2007, Dr. Fowler spent three years starting up the Aspetar Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital in Doha, Qatar. He was instrumental in getting Aspetar accredited as a FIFA-certified medical institution – a prerequisite for Qatar being awarded soccer’s 2022 World Cup.
“So, he’s really built two clinics,” Dr. Litchfield said.
Dr. Fowler leaves his wife of 58 years, Libby; children, Tim, Megan, Cameron and Peter; six grandchildren; and his brother, Ken. He was predeceased by his sister, Jaclyn.