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Meetings must adapt as surgeons specialize
by Per Kjaersgaard-Andersen, MD
In Europe, we are seeing a growing trend toward specialization in orthopaedic surgery. Just a mere 10 or 15 years ago, many of us saw a wide range of orthopaedic cases in our day-to-day practices, especially if we worked at smaller hospitals or clinics outside the big cities.
Our colleagues in the United States have been addressing the issue of specialization for some time, and some of the subspecialty organizations there have been holding annual scientific meetings for decades. What role the orthopaedic industry marketplace has played in fostering that specialization is uncertain, but the health care delivery system in the United States recognizes and supports a specialized structure.
Meanwhile, in Europe, more subspecialty organizations are hosting annual or biennial conferences, and new organizations have seemed to surface in recent years. Orthopaedic surgeons today face more choices than ever in terms of the professional societies they should join as well as the meetings and/or instructional courses they “need” to attend.
Organizations challenged, too
In light of this increasing trend toward specialization, the national and international orthopaedic societies also face a daunting task of constructing meetings that appeal not just to the general orthopaedic surgeon but to the specialist as well.
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This brings up a point: Where should orthopaedic surgeons go to get information on their chosen specialty fields, and is it the role of large orthopaedic organizations like the European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology (EFORT) and Société Internationale de Chirurgie Orthopédique et de Traumatologie (SICOT) to offer subspecialty instructional courses and symposia?
After returning from the 10th EFORT Congress in Vienna, I began to think of the logistical challenges of organizing a meeting of that size, as well as the questions organizers need to ask themselves when drafting a scientific program. Large meetings have to strike a balance between covering the various subspecialty areas adequately while also offering enough general courses and papers to meet the needs of all orthopaedic surgeons in attendance. That is not easy to accomplish, especially as more surgeons decide to spend their time and money attending subspecialty meetings.
Pinpointing subspecialty topics
At this year’s EFORT Congress, there were more Experts Meet Experts (ExMEx) sessions, more Specialty Society Symposia and instructional lectures, and even more free papers devoted to subspecialty topics. There were also the always-popular general orthopaedic papers and symposia on such universal topics as infections, imaging, outcome measurements, registries, managing complications, and treatment guidelines that appeal to nearly everyone regardless of their subspecialty.
These are changing times in European orthopaedics, and it will be interesting to see how the field of orthopaedic surgery evolves in the next few years in light of growing subspecialization. It will also be interesting to see how large organizations like EFORT address those trends.
For more information:
- Per Kjaersgaard-Andersen, MD, is an assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery, Vejle Hospital at South Danish University, Vejle, Denmark, and is the president of the Danish Orthopaedic Association. He is also the chief medical editor of Orthopaedics Today Europe. He can be reached at ote@slackinc.com.