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By Ann Curran Photography by Becky Thurner Braddock Kurt Angle with Dr. Hae-Dong Jho Professional wrestler Kurt Angle admits he had a strange response when he first heard from neurosurgeon Dr. Hae-Dong Jho. "I thought he was some crazy chiropractor," says Angle. Jho, who heads the Jho Institute for Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery at Allegheny General Hospital, had read about Angle, an Olympic gold-medal-winning wrestler, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Angle, 38, a Mount Lebanon native who now lives in Moon Township with his wife, Karen, and children, Kyra and Kody, had won his gold in 1996 with what he describes as "a broken freakin' neck." He was injured during the Olympic Free Style U.S. Open, a competition among amateur wrestlers. Now it was 2003; he was in professional wrestling, a different game altogether - more entertainment than pure athletics. And he had injured his neck again. He'd told the Post-Gazette that most wrestlers with his injury had to undergo fusion - replacement of a disk with a bone graft and metal, which limited movement - and worse: The procedure would put the wrestler out of commission for a year. Jho sent an e-mail to Angle. There was a way to treat the injury, Jho advised him, so Angle could get back in the ring much sooner. They got together. The surgeon looked at the X-rays. Angle remembers Jho's telling him, "I can fix that.You'll be out in two months." Angle's mental response again: "Crazy!" But Angle was mistaken. Since then, as he reports, "I've never been more thankful for any doctor."
Jho is famous for his "Band-Aid" techniques used in minimally invasive surgery - whether it's the brain, the neck or the spine. Most patients go home the next day, often sporting a single Band-Aid over a small incision. Jho is known, too, for his patients' hospital accommodations. They don't go to the intensive-care unit after an operation; they go to a private room. "I don't care if my patient is poor, indigent, homeless or rich, he deserves decent care in a private room," Jho says. He also insists his patients eat "healthy food" from the dietitian and nurses who provide "compassionate, loving care." "He's a complete gentleman" outside the operating room, Angle has observed, and "a drill sergeant" inside. Early in his medical career as a military doctor in South Korea, Jho gave up neurosurgery temporarily for teaching at Hanyang University Medical Center because of the horrific outcomes for patients. He decided to give it another try by applying to the 10 best neurosurgery programs in the world. Among several positive responses was one from Dr. Peter Jannetta at Allegheny General. Jho completed a fellowship in microneurosurgery and basically repeated his internship and residency at University of Pittsburgh. Now he strives constantly through his noninvasive procedures - even making his own operating instruments - to help more than hurt. During Angle's noninvasive surgery, Jho shaved off a small piece of a disk pinching a nerve. He developed the treatment and, like other operations he has developed and performs, it attracts patients worldwide. He's developed operations that no one else does, and patients recover very quickly. Jho passes on his experience as a professor and chair of the department of neuroendoscopy, which is minimally invasive spinal surgery that strives to maintain normal anatomy and function, at AGH and also at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. And Jho's children are following in his footsteps: His son, David, is a resident at Massachusetts General Hospital; daughter Diana is a medical student at St. George's University in Grenada. As a patient, Angle probably states this surgeon's legacy best: "Dr. Jho has given me my whole life back." After Angle's initial surgery, he was able to lift his then-baby daughter, Kyra, now 4. Jho told him immediately after surgery April 11, 2003, he could go to the gym and lift weights. In a month he could bench press, and in six weeks he'd be ready to go back to work. When Angle returned to the wrenching world of TV pro wrestling with World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. (he has since left), Angle says, "I was going strong about six, seven months, and a guy hit me straight over the head with a chair. It was part of the script." But Angle's hands went numb. Jho worked on his back a second time. He was back at work in two months. After the third injury - a herniated disk in Angle's back - Jho advised a wait-and-see approach. The hernia dissolved itself, says Jho. Right now, the wrestler says his neck is functioning at 100 percent. Which is excellent news, since he's now joined Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, a pro-wrestling organization. He has added author to his resume, thanks to his best-selling autobiography, It's True, It's True, in which Angle talks about story lines - good guy, bad guy - and the saga of predetermined winners endemic to TV wrestling. By the end of the year, he plans to get into mixed martial arts. In this discipline, opponents use a variety of techniques against each other: wrestling, amateur wrestling, karate, boxing, kickboxing, jujitsu, sambo, judo. Hollywood could be another possibility in the future, he says, noting that the search is on for a new Conan and Terminator. He also mentions starting "webisodes." Who knows, maybe like the guy who played the previous Conan and Terminator, Kurt Angle could run for governor one day.
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