News and Progress

Gift establishes endowed professorship in orthopedic surgery

Michael and Krystyna Clarke's estate gift will anhance MU's orthopedic surgery department.

Jan. 10, 2005

By pledging part of their estate, Michael and Krystyna Clarke will help make the growing orthopedic surgery department at MU the best it can be.

Michael Clarke, MD '69, hadn't been planning to establish a professorship in his specialty, but then two things happened:

• a recognition of the excellent medical education he received at MU; and
• some gentle nudging from a friend who just happens to be William Crist, MD '69, dean of the School of Medicine.

Clarke and Crist attended Mizzou together in the 1960s, and when Crist called his former classmate, founder and president of Clarke Orthopedic Clinic in Springfield, Mo., Clarke was ready to help his alma mater. “A great deal of the reason I did it is because of William Crist and his dynamic leadership,” Clarke says.

Through an estate gift of $550,000, Clarke and his wife, Krystyna, will create the Michael S. Clarke Professorship in the growing orthopedic surgery department. The school recently recruited a new chair and three faculty members in orthopedic surgery. At MU, $550,000 establishes an endowed professorship, and $1.1 million establishes an endowed chair. By donating a portion of their estate, the Clarkes join the Legacy Society, MU's growing club for those who have pledged part or all of their estates to benefit the University. “I hope they can attract a really outstanding professor with that money,” Clarke says.

Clarke, who completed his undergraduate degree at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., says he appreciates the fact that he received a fine education at MU for an affordable price compared with private schools. “It was an amazing value to go to medical school at Missouri,” he says. Not only was the price right, but Clarke also says he received excellent training in orthopedics, and he respects the leadership of Drs. Bill Allen, Bob Gaines and Barry Gainor. “They established an excellent orthopedic surgery department at MU, and I want that success to continue,” Clarke says.

After completing a residency at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and the Campbell Clinic in Memphis, Tenn., Clarke founded and was president of Ozark Orthopedic Associates from 1976 to 1990, when he was called away as an Army reservist to the first Gulf War. During Operation Desert Storm he treated wounded soldiers at a hospital in Saudi Arabia. Living in the desert for six months while trying to keep his practice at home going was quite a challenge. In Saudi Arabia, Clarke sometimes found himself performing round-the-clock operations. “It was an amazingly unique experience,” he says.

In Saudi Arabia, Clarke met his future wife, a registered nurse from Poland who was working as part of a United Nations humanitarian mission. After a four year friendship, she moved to Springfield, and the couple married in 1994.

As a health care worker herself, Krystyna Clarke says she understands the importance of her husband's commitment to the School of Medicine. “I respect Michael very much for making this decision,” she says. “I think his dream is that the orthopedics department will become one of the best in the country.”

“To a certain extent, it already is,” he adds.

In 2004, Clarke retired as a colonel in the U.S. Army after 34 years of military service. As chief of orthopedics for the 21st General Army Reserve Hospital in St. Louis, he participated in a number of overseas missions during his career. Clarke served aboard the Hospital Ship Mercy for a humanitarian mission in the Philippines, and he also worked with humanitarian missions in Germany, Yugoslavia and Italy.

Clarke has been in private practice for more than 30 years, during which he has served as chief of staff for Columbia Hospitals of Springfield and led many medical, professional and service organizations. In 1992, he received the School of Medicine Distinguished Service Award.