41st Annual Advances in Arthroplasty Course

"Optimizing Hip and Knee Arthroplasty Using Evidence-Based Medicine: From Early Intervention to Complex Reconstruction"

This year’s Annual Advances in Arthroplasty Course marked the 41st presentation of the course, making it the longest Continuing Education Course at Harvard Medical School. In keeping with the outstanding success of the new and innovative format of last year’s program highlighting today’s important challenges in the field of total joint arthroplasty surgery, the focus of this year’s course was applying evidence-based medicine in optimizing clinical outcomes and quality of life in patients with hip and knee arthroplasty, as well as early treatment of hip disease in young adults. Integration of clinical expertise from outstanding local, national and international faculty with the best available clinical evidence from research and national joint registry data into the decision making process for patient care was presented to address clinical challenges relevant to everyday practice. They included femoroacetabular impingement, dislocation, alternate bearings materials in contemporary use and edge wear, sepsis, the optimization of DVT prophylaxis, and the use of navigation and emerging implant designs.

The program included the 10th Annual Harris Oration by Robert Barrack, MD; keynote addresses; symposia; and the very popular video vignettes and “live surgeries”. As always, there was ample time during the “Meet the Faculty Sessions” for discussion of challenging cases and issues with the expert faculty in the field. The venue for the 41st course was the recently renovated Hyatt Regency Hotel, Cambridge and it was a tremendous success!

MGH Primary Care Orthopaedics Course

This year’s annual MGH Primary Care Orthopaedics Course, under the direction of David Ring, MD, PhD, and Co-Directors Drs. Thomas Gill IV, Richard de Asla, Brian Grottkau, R. Malcolm Smith, and George Theodore, was held in May at the Harvard Club on Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay. This Harvard Medical School accredited program has been offered by the MGH Department of Orthopaedic Surgery for a over twelve years and teaches the fundamentals of musculoskeletal medicine to primary care providers in interactive sessions, including a casting and splinting workshop run by John Burns. We return to the Harvard Club on May 6 and 7, 2013.