Senator Ted Kennedy's shocking news gives us all pause. Even though I deal with news like his on a daily basis, the enormity of the national response has caused me to reflect on the less appreciated facts of his case.

Yesterday I gave 80 hours of instructional lectures to several hundred orthopedic surgeons at the Jui Shui Tan second annual orthopedic meeting. I would show a powerpoint slide and make my statements while the Chinese interpreter repeated in Chinese. While