By the time he was 13, Robert Volz, MD, had found what would be a lifelong love: climbing mountains. In his lifetime, the Lincoln, Nebraska, native scaled nearly all 58 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks and led five trips to Nepal, twice reaching the base camp of Mount Everest.
His desire to reach new heights was also reflected in his 35-year career as an orthopedic surgeon and an inventor of several innovations, including the first wrist prosthesis, a total elbow prosthesis, and an artificial knee.
It’s appropriate that Dr. Volz, a 1954 University of Nebraska graduate and 1957 University of Nebraska College of Medicine graduate, left a legacy for the next generation of innovators. Through his estate, he established an endowed fund — the Robert G. Volz Chair of Biomechanics in UNMC’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation — at the University of Nebraska Foundation.
Dr. Volz had warm memories of his time as a University of Nebraska and UNMC grad, his son Jack said.
“He was very proud to have graduated from both of those schools. He wore his Nebraska ring for his wedding ring.”
His family remembers Dr. Volz, who died in 2023 at age 91, as someone who was always looking for a better way to do things.
“That was just his nature,” said his wife, Ann. “‘If something doesn’t work well, then we’ll find another way to do it.’ He was a ‘get it done and move on to the next thing’ person, not being satisfied with the status quo, always thinking there might be something better ahead.”
Jack Volz recalls when his father was working on the wrist prosthesis.
“He came home with a cast on, and I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘I want to see what it’s like to not have any range of motion of my wrist.’ So, for a week or so he was walking around the house with the cast on.”
That curiosity and a desire to put himself in others’ shoes motivated Dr. Volz.
In the early 1970s, he was recruited to build a total joint surgery program at the University of Arizona Medical Center for its new Department of Orthopedics. There, he established a biomechanics research laboratory — known today as the Robert G. Volz, MD, Orthopedic Research Laboratory — for the design and testing of new total joints.
He encouraged collaboration in his practice, creating a patient-centered model for orthopedic residents and their rheumatology fellows caring for patients in the same clinic. It was the same in his lab, where he invited engineering students to work with him.
Hani Haider, Ph.D. – an engineer himself — knows the importance of collaboration. Director of the UNMC Orthopaedic Biomechanics and Advanced Surgical Technologies Laboratory and professor in the UNMC Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation, he holds the Volz Chair.
Haider came to the university from the London Medical School at the Centre of Biomedical Engineering in Stanmore, where he developed one of the most successful knee simulators in the field.
UNMC took note of his innovation and acquired two of the simulators for the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation. And “eventually, they got me,” said Haider, who joined the department in 2008.
To learn more about giving to the department, please reach out to Emily Tiensvold, Senior Director of Development at the University of Nebraska Foundation, at emily.tiensvold@nufoundation.org or 402-502-4107.
To learn more about giving to the department, please reach out to Emily Tiensvold, Senior Director of Development at the University of Nebraska Foundation, at emily.tiensvold@nufoundation.org or 402-502-4107
