Posted: December 23, 2009

By Michael Schwartz

michael.schwartz@insidebiz.com

To understand the evolution of Atlantic Orthopaedic Specialists, you need to understand the state of orthopedic medicine in the early 1900s.

There were no MRIs. There were no CAT scans. Crude forms of X-rays had been discovered a few decades prior and it's doubtful there were many of those lead vests handy.

If you tore one of your cruciate ligaments playing whatever sports existed in those days, there wasn't much anyone could do for you, let alone arthroscopic surgery.

So when Dr. Foy Vann founded his orthopedic medical practice at York and Boush streets in Norfolk in 1919, "They were just trying to take broken bones and get them to be straight," said Dr. J. Abbott Byrd, AOS's current president.

Vann was a one-man broken-bone setting machine in Hampton Roads until his son John Vann joined the practice in 1947.

As technology evolved, so too did treatment capabilities and Vann's practice.

Joint replacements came onto the scene - only for hips starting out - in the '60s, Byrd recalled. By then, Vann's practice had expanded, with offices in Virginia Beach and at Wards Corner in Norfolk and moved its main office to the medical tower near what is now Eastern Virginia Medical School.

CAT scans were introduced in the '70s. Vann brought more doctors into his fold and expanded near DePaul Medical Center and Leigh Hospital.

Then in the '80s came MRIs and the rise of sports medicine, which has become a big concentration for the practice today thanks to the popularity of athletics, Byrd said.

During that decade the practice went through a merger and changed its name to Vann Orthopaedic Associates.

The '90s brought more mergers including a deal in 1993 that combined Vann with Atlantic Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine. The resulting practice was known as Vann Atlantic.

Then in 1998, Vann merged with the Virginia Center for Orthopaedics, when it became AOS as it is known today.

Now with 160 employees, six offices and physical therapy centers spread across Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, AOS is on the verge of another acquisition, taking over Orthopaedic Associates of Virginia, which will bring it up to 23 doctors. The practice also serves as the team doctors for the Norfolk Tides, Old Dominion University sports and Norfolk State University.

"We've come a long way since one doctor was setting broken bones," said Byrd, who joined the practice in 1987.

But as far as it has come, ending a conversation with Byrd shows the practice's bread and butter is still the same as the old days.

"If you break anything keep us in mind."