2011 Outstanding Alumnus Award Winner
A native of Georgia, Dr. Beaty may not have known exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up, but he always knew that he wanted to be like his father, a Methodist minister, and choose a career that “served people in some way.”
After moving to Memphis with his family before his senior year of high school, Dr. Beaty followed the advice of his parents and shadowed a number of professionals in various careers, including medicine.
“As soon as I spent time shadowing some physicians, I knew it was for me,” he says.
Dr. Beaty chose pediatric orthopaedics — a long way from his first job and junior high school days of mowing lawns.
Upon graduating with a bachelor’s degree in pre-med from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., he returned to Memphis to attend medical school at the University of Tennessee. Dr. Beaty completed his residency at the University of Tennessee-Campbell Clinic and a fellowship in pediatric orthopaedics at the Alfred I. DuPont Institute in Wilmington, Del. In 1982, he joined the Campbell Clinic, where he now serves as chief of staff and professor of orthopaedics.
“My interest is in newborn conditions like club feet, hip dislocations, and all of the congenital anomalies,” he says. “My second interest is trauma. I’m interested in kids’ fractures of all kinds; the more unusual, the more interesting to me.
“The wonderful thing about orthopaedics is there’s a lot of immediate gratification for physicians. There’s a very tangible, concrete problem, and we can deal with it and address it and correct it. Most cases usually end happily.”
Living his life by the Golden Rule — treat others as you would like to be treated — Dr. Beaty still manages to see patients daily while overseeing nearly 50 orthopaedic interns, residents, and fellows.
“I am living the dream,” says Dr. Beaty, who credits teachers like the late Dr. Al Ingram, former chairman of orthopaedics at UT, for sparking his interest in orthopaedics.
Beaty spent the first decade of his career at Campbell focusing on his practice. He eventually became more involved in research, publishing articles and contributing to textbooks. He also has taken on various leadership roles in such organizations as the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery, the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America, the Mid-America Orthopaedic Association, and the Tennessee Orthopaedic Society.
His greatest pride and joy are his children Eric, who works for Cantor Fitzgerald, and Meredith, who is an emergency department nurse at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital. Married for 33 years to Terry, a former nurse, Dr. Beaty says a dream vacation would be spending time with his wife and children on a beach with a nearby golf course.
Dr. Beaty, who also finds time to play in a 1960s music band, says, “Getting to watch patients grow up, that’s the best thing we get to do.”
View Past Medicine Award Winners