BIDMC Othopaedic Trauma Service Year in Review, 2012-2013

By: Edward K.Rodriguez, M.D., Ph.D.

The academic year 2012-2013 has been a busy and eventful year at the BIDMC. Our dedication to resident education remains our primary focus as we continue our mentorship model of teaching with the trauma PGY-4 resident working day to day with Dr. Rodriguez and the PGY-5 with Dr. Appleton. The lack of trauma fellows, except on special occasions when they visit from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, allows for the senior residents to assume a primary surgical role in cases as well as lead the entire care team in non-surgical clinical activities. The increased surgical participation of our PGY-1, 2, and 3 residents has also been warmly received. Our efforts at increasing resident operative experience have been rewarded with motivating reviews by our residents who continue to rank us highly in their reviews of our service. Our trauma team consisting of our two attending traumatologists with the added support of Dr. DeAngelis and other members of our department remains dedicated to providing an optimal teaching environment to our rotating residents. Our staff also includes our dedicated trauma NP, Nicole Desrosiers, who manages all our outpatient clinical issues and two inpatient PAs, Scott Herman and Barry Griffin. Our dedicated intraoperative team, Angela Kelly and Brett Mactavish, also continue to make going to the OR the most rewarding part or our jobs. Our excellent administrative staff, Mary Gillen and Kathy Donovan, and our research support staff, Katiri Wagner and Lindsay Herder, complete a highly dedicated and capable team that optimally integrates education, patient care, and research.

In the clinical setting, the overall effectiveness of our trauma system, as well as those of our sister institutions, was tested this year like it had never been before following the tragic events related to the Boston Marathon Bombing. It was only the professionalism and dedication of our residents, staff and extended team, which allowed us to respond so effectively to help our fellow Bostonians and injured visitors. I must personally say that witnessing our residents expertise and professionalism under pressure brought a sense of pride and accomplishment difficult to convey.

In the research arena we are increasingly improving ties and collaboration with the trauma services at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The number of inter-institutional studies has increased exponentially over the last few years. The BIDMC trauma service is also a strong participant in an international multicenter study comparing intertrochanteric fixations systems (INSITE). We actively support resident research and three of our graduating residents this year initiated their thesis work within the BIDMC trauma service. We are also involved actively on translational studies at the Center for Advanced Orthopedic Sciences (CAOS) at BIDMC, continuing to work on novel systems for infection and fracture prevention. We are now also starting a new series of studies that for the first time will assess the effectiveness of intra-articular relaxin as a potential agent to manage arthrofibrosis. We are also interested in public health issues and have initiated in collaboration with our BIDMC emergency department and the Partner’s system a study on bike injuries and the conditions under which they occur.

We continue to remain grateful to our BIDMC orthopedic partners and leaders, as well as to the greater Harvard Orthopedic Community for their continued support and trust. We are extremely proud of our graduating class this year and of all of our residents for their devotion to their work. We are grateful for their friendship and camaraderie.