Knee replacement pioneer Gunston remembered

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This article was published 23/02/2016 (3495 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Brandon doctor credited with creating a knee replacement system that remains one of the most-used and successful orthopedic operations in the world has died.

Dr. Frank Gunston, an Order of Canada recipient, passed away in his home on Feb. 15. He was remembered at a service that filled Memories Chapel in Brandon on Monday afternoon.

Gunston was 82, and is survived by Sharleen, his wife of 47 years, and children John and Jennifer.

His 43-year career developed from working at a zinc and copper mine in Flin Flon to being heralded as a pioneer in orthopedics who chose to give away his design for the first total knee-joint replacement prosthesis to be implanted into the human body.

Born in Flin Flon in 1933, Gunston always knew what he wanted, said his sister, Judy Grandstaff.

As a 16-year-old, that meant agreeing to a family trip on the newly completed road to and from Flin Flon, only if his parents would buy him a car.

Grandstaff recalled her brother taking the new-to-him 1930s roadster completely apart in their parents’ garage later that summer.

“Well, that’s $100 wasted,” Grandstaff recalled their father Leonard saying at the time.

“But he put it back together, and it ran,” she said in his eulogy. Many in the room laughed knowingly.

Gunston remained a tinkerer all his life. After earning his engineering degree from the University of Manitoba in 1957, he returned as an engineer to Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting in Flin Flon.

He was sent by the company to England to work on transistors in telephone systems — at the time an emerging technology.

There, Gunston became fascinated by the transistor’s role in the pacemaker — another new technology at the time.

“I was frustrated because I could work on the pacemakers, but not on the patients,” he told The Brandon Sun in a 1994 interview.

So he returned to Winnipeg and earned his Doctor of Medicine degree. In 1963, he returned to England to work with Sir John Charnley in Lancashire — helping Charnley develop a hip prothesis.

Gunston noticed that patients with newly replaced hips were often still restricted by their arthritic knees — launching his work to develop a suitable replacement.

His solution combined plastic and metallic elements in a set of tracks, attached to the top of the tibia with a matching set of metal inserts fastened to the femur, allowing the joint to work together by moving along a runner.

Gunston’s knee was eventually implanted on 27 patients before he returned to Winnipeg. He published his work in a 1971 research paper, a significant and generous decision.

A 2005 article in The Sun notes Gunston could have patented his work, which would have paved the way for commercial development and use, instead of it available to anybody.

“I was not particularly interested in the commercial exploitation,” he said at the time.

In 1982, Gunston returned to Brandon General Hospital to devote more time to his research.

Gunston, who also developed several other human joint replacements, was at the time the only Manitoban to be awarded the $100,000 Manning Award for Canadian inventors in 1989 for his knee prothesis.

Gunston was named Distinguished Surgeon by the Canadian Orthopaedic Association in 1994, and received the Order of Canada in 1997 and the Manitoba Medical Association Scholastic Award in 1998.

Gunston retired in 2000, turning his focus to tinkering under the hood of stock cars and with narrow-gauge steam engines. He received the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002 and the Diamond Jubilee Medal 10 years later.

On Monday, Gunston was remembered by his son John as a man with a unique social presence: known by his friends for his trademark cigar, fishing hat and a love for music that started when he picked up the trumpet in high school.

“He once came second in a ‘Frank Gunston Impersonation Contest’ held by fellow members of the Westwood Community Band in Winnipeg,” recalled Gunston’s son, who also plays the trumpet.

“He made an impact with those he came into contact with.”

» tbateman@brandonsun.com

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