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The Supreme Court on Monday announced Justice Sonia Sotomayor will undergo shoulder-replacement surgery. Sotomayor, 63, injured her shoulder when she fell at her home earlier this month. The court's public information office said in a press release that "tests revealed she suffered a multipart displaced head splitting fracture of her proximal humerus," and that further consultation with specialists indicated surgery was needed. The court said she will undergo reverse total shoulder replacement on Tuesday morning and will curtail activities for the next few weeks while she recuperates. “She will wear a sling for several weeks and will undergo physical therapy...

Blessed' Kerry back on trail By Thomas Caywood Monday, April 5, 2004 After convalescing at home on Beacon Hill for four days following shoulder surgery Wednesday, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry [related, bio] yesterday hit the campaign trail again by celebrating Palm Sunday at a Roxbury church. Kerry didn't address the congregation at Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church, but he waved and shook hands as he left the packed church amid a broadside of camera flashes. The senator didn't wear a sling or appear to favor his right shoulder or bicep, which doctors successfully operated on to repair torn...

Polls rub salt into Kerry's wounds From The Times April 03, 2004 AN inability to shake hands, let alone hold babies aloft to be kissed, would seem a handicap for a politician campaigning to be the next US president. John Kerry, who is incapacitated after undergoing shoulder surgery this week, will have to find other ways to reach out to voters until his torn tendons heal. His hospitalisation for the 45-minute operation may have been brief. But it serves as an uncomfortable metaphor for a presidential campaign in anything but rude health. When former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke...

BOSTON -- Democrat John Kerry had complication-free outpatient surgery yesterday to fix a tear in his right shoulder and bicep tendons and will be back shaking voters' hands soon, although not too forcefully. The four-term Massachusetts senator planned to be off the presidential campaign trail for the remainder of the week. Bertram Zarins, chief of sports medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, said Kerry would be in pain for a few days and probably in need of an ice pack and narcotic painkillers. Zarins said Kerry was smiling and talking shortly after coming out of the 45-minute procedure. "He joked a...

WASHINGTON -- I believe the Democrats are on to something. I believe they have devised a very clever plan to stop Senator John François Kerry's decline in the polls. According to news reports, they are checking him in at an undisclosed hospital for tendon surgery on his shoulder. That will keep him out of sight for a while. After that they can try knee surgery. He has a record of knee injuries. Then there are his allergies. Off and on they can check him into an allergy sanitarium. When he actually does appear on the campaign trail, if his penchant...

BOSTON (Reuters) - Democrat John Kerry underwent successful minor surgery on his right shoulder on Wednesday, a "quick fix" to repair a torn tendon that will keep him off the presidential campaign trail for the rest of the week. "There were no problems, complications or surprises," said Dr. Bertram Zarins, chief of sports medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. "Senator Kerry is awake, smiling, and in no pain." The four-term senator from Massachusetts tore part of his right rotator cuff in January when he braced himself against an abrupt stop on a bus tour in Iowa during the race for the...

We've all heard that the operation on Kerry's shoulder is to repair and old injury. What old injury? Why now? There is every reason to believe that this ultra-liberal injured his shoulder on his recent snow boarding vacation. We saw all of the footage of him gliding down the slopes, but nary a foot of him crashing into the secret service agent or the other five known crashes. (And that was just the first day.)

POLITICAL MEMO Bad Timing as Kerry Slips Out of Picture By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JODI WILGOREN ASHINGTON, March 31 — At the very moment that President Bush has begun his general election campaign, Senator John Kerry has largely slipped from sight. And Mr. Bush has made the most of Mr. Kerry's absence. Mr. Kerry's low profile occurs at what would seem to be a particularly opportune time for the senator. Mr. Bush has been struggling with questions about his record on terrorism, and Mr. Kerry had been riding on a wave of excitement after his capture of the Democratic nomination....

FLIP-FLOPPING MAY HAVE INJURED KERRY’S SHOULDER Doctor Advises Senator Not to Change Positions for Two Weeks With Senator John F. Kerry (D-Mass) set for shoulder surgery in Boston today, an orthopedic surgeon familiar with the Senator’s condition said that Mr. Kerry’s penchant for flip-flopping may have caused the injury to his shoulder. “Constant or repetitive flip-flopping can cause major orthopedic damage,” said Dr. Robert Claman of Massachusetts General Hospital. “If it goes unchecked, flip-flopping can injure a shoulder far more seriously than tennis or golf.” Dr. Claman said that Mr. Kerry first felt a nagging pain in the tendon of...

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) will undergo elective surgery on his right shoulder tomorrow that will prevent him from working rope lines for a couple weeks and from holding up kissable babies for even longer.Kerry will wear a sling for a day or two after a 45 minute outpatient surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital to repair a torn rotator cuff, said his surgeon, Dr. Bertram Zarins. Kerry tore the tendon in January in the Iowa Primary tyring to brace himself when his campaign bus lurched suddenly. Zarins said that Kerry 'still cannot use the shoulder without pain.'Kerry, who underwent successful prostate...

Trying to head off concern over Senator John Kerry's planned shoulder surgery this week, his campaign on Monday released a letter from his doctor attesting to Mr. Kerry's "excellent health" and arranged for his orthopedist to answer questions about Wednesday's scheduled procedure. At a forum on Monday in Sacramento, Mr. Kerry did not mention his experience with cancer while discussing health care, as he usually does. The Kerry campaign has said it will eventually release his full medical file but has thus far not done so. Instead, it offered a nine-paragraph letter from Dr. Doyle that used the word "normal"...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who will undergo minor shoulder surgery on Wednesday, faces a politician's worst nightmare while recovering -- no shaking hands. "I think initially we'll have him avoid handshaking," said Dr. Bertram Zarins, who will perform the outpatient surgery at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital. "But as he feels the strength improving, and when he tries to shake a hand if it doesn't hurt, then I think it's alright for him to do it," he said in a conference call with reporters. Kerry, who will challenge President George W. Bush in November, hurt the...

ST. LOUIS, March 28 -- Sen. John F. Kerry, by most measures an unusually fit 60-year-old, has spent key parts of his presidential campaign battling ailments ranging from prostate cancer to a stubborn cough and cold. Kerry frequently complains to reporters of a stiff right shoulder or allergies that leave his voice raspy and sore. For much of this year, Kerry has curtailed speaking and sipped hot lemon tea to nurse a voice strained by hacking and yakking. In mid-February, he described the ailment to reporters as a "chest thing" and griped about its persistence. On Wednesday, Kerry will undergo...

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) will have minor outpatient surgery on his right shoulder next week that may keep him off the campaign trail for up to four days. Spokesman David Wade said the Massachusetts senator aggravated an old injury to a tendon from the sub-scapularis muscle -- which helps move the shoulder -- earlier this year when he braced himself against an abrupt stop on a bus tour in Iowa during the race for the Democratic nomination. "He will have outpatient surgery on his shoulder on Wednesday at Massachusetts General Hospital," Wade said. "It's a...

ST. LOUIS, March 28 -- Sen. John F. Kerry, by most measures an unusually fit 60-year-old, has spent key parts of his presidential campaign battling ailments ranging from prostate cancer to a stubborn cough and cold. On Monday, Kerry's general physician, Gerald Doyle, is slated to release an updated summary of the candidate's health record. And Bertram Zarins, from Massachusetts General, will brief reporters on Kerry's shoulder surgery. But, several aides said, Kerry's bout with prostate cancer was to blame for the candidate's slow and uneven start to the presidential campaign. After surgery in February 2003, Kerry missed several weeks...