Driving customization in trauma and extremities education

Industry's contributions to surgeon education – whether through support of third-party organizations such as Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation (OREF) or partnerships with surgeons and/or teaching institutions - have long played an important role in advancing the practice of orthopedics and promoting better outcomes.

With health care resources about to get stretched tighter than ever due to growing demand and continuing economic challenges, our involvement in physician training could become increasingly critical and require even closer collaboration with our surgeon partners to help ensure available programming continues to meet their changing needs.

One area of surgeon education that industry should be intently focused on is developing new training models for the trauma and extremities (T&E) market. Our industry's tendency to date has been to simply apply the approach used in reconstructive training programs to the T&E courses. But the unique characteristics of the T&E specialty requires a more customized approach than is typically found in reconstruction education because of the tremendously broad array of surgeon groups and products that make up our field.

Broad range of foot and ankle topics

In foot and ankle alone, for example, the variety of products that require training include such a broad range of plating, nail, screw, and fixation systems, and surgeon differentiation and approaches that must be accommodated can include standard MDs, fellowship-trained MDs, podiatrists, front and rear foot reconstruction specialists and the list goes on. To be effective within these widely varying parameters, our industry must work to create a broader range of T&E programs that are more focused on the huge range of indications and products rather than following the large-scale standardized approach that works for reconstruction education.

In addition to extremities programs that accommodate a range of indications and products, industry should continue to develop trauma programs that teach a variety of surgical approaches. While reconstruction surgeons can generally rest assured that they will be able to employ their favored technique in surgical procedures, trauma surgeons don't have that luxury and must be well-versed in multiple approaches to ensure the best outcomes.

Industry/surgeon partnerships

To successfully meet these needs, industry must partner with surgeons to make sure they teach as much on procedures as they do on products, or in other words, put more emphasis on the medicine than the marketing. All the major device manufacturers are making progress toward this goal, but there's more we can do.

At Stryker, we've found our highest demand T&E courses are those that are lab-based rather than lecture-intensive, that have a high faculty-to-surgeon ratio and that provide a highly unique experience. To meet the distinctive needs of our T&E customers in an increasingly challenging health care delivery environment, surgeon education must not only be about training customers on specific products but also about providing a great medical education experience.

For more information:

Peter Valente, is the senior director of global HCP education at Stryker.