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Irish Orthopaedic Association is resource for all-Ireland orthopaedic, trauma education
The annual meeting brings orthopaedists in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland together for education and social activities.
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The Irish Orthopaedic Association had its start in the Irish Orthopaedic Club, which met during the 1950s. At the outset, membership was limited to 15 physician members who met alternately at hospitals in Dublin and Belfast, according to an online history of the Irish Orthopaedic Association.
The Irish Orthopaedic Club last met in 1987, after which the Irish Orthopaedic Association (IOA) was established in 1988.
“It started, I am told, at a time when orthopaedics as a specialty was not that recognized as a lot of the orthopaedics, particularly in fractures, was delivered by general surgeons,” IOA president Gerard F. McCoy, MD, FRCS, told Orthopaedics Today Europe.
Due to the evolution of orthopaedic surgery as a distinct specialty, the first orthopaedic surgeons in northern or southern Ireland would have been appointed in the 1950s. “They were pioneers in their own right,” McCoy said.
Pioneers in Belfast
The first orthopaedic surgeon in the north of Ireland, where McCoy is from, was Mr. Jimmy Withers.
“His memory is maintained by the fact the orthopaedic center at Musgrave Park Hospital, which is the orthopaedic center for Northern Ireland, is called the Withers Orthopaedic Center,” McCoy said.
The orthopaedic wards at Musgrave Park Hospital in Belfast are also referred to today as the Withers Wards.
Biographical information shows Withers was also a founder of the Northern Ireland Council for Orthopaedic Development.
In the Republic of Ireland, the best-known early orthopaedic surgeons were Joe Gallagher, MCh, FRCSI, who practiced at Cappagh National Orthopaedic Hospital in Dublin, and Paddy McCauley, who was from Cork. Fred Moore, a past president of IOA, was appointed early on as an orthopaedic surgeon in Ireland, according to McCoy.
“[Moore] was president of the IOA at a time when there was a much closer association between surgeons in the Republic of Ireland and the professional organization ... ,” said McCoy, whose term as IOA president ends in June 2017.
Purpose of IOA
More of a club than anything else at its start, the IOA “was for social, scientific, organizational meetings so that those in practice in the north and south met up and discussed and presented cases and/or studies, and discussed the future,” McCoy noted.
The overall purpose of the IOA today, which consists of about 150 members at the consultant level who practice either privately or publicly, is not too different from what it originally was, he added.
“We have gone forward as an association with the same goals.”
As Ireland is now a country divided, this, however, puts the IOA in a different position in terms of its authority than other national orthopaedic associations or societies.
“It is across two jurisdictions, which means that it cannot have an executive role,” according to McCoy.
That means the IOA cannot directly determine training standards, establish hospital training units or set the required training in either the Republic or Northern Ireland, as orthopaedic organizations in in other countries, like the Netherlands, can do in their own jurisdictions, he said.
Annual meeting
The IOA holds annual meetings that provide educational opportunities for all orthopaedic surgeons who practice on the island of Ireland. The sites selected for the meetings are situated, as often as possible, on or near the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. An example of that is the most recent IOA Annual Meeting, held 15-18 June 2016, in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland. This approach to site selection for the meeting helps accommodate attendance by orthopaedic surgeons in both countries.
Furthermore, the venues typically have facilities for scientific sessions, an industrial exhibition and social and sports activities, including golf.
“We were encouraged, and it is still encouraged to be a family thing” where delegates’ spouses and families also attend the meeting, McCoy said of the annual meeting.
Trainees share ideas
Juniors in training, of which there are about 48 in the Republic of Ireland and 20 in Northern Ireland, do not pay to attend the IOA annual meeting and the cost for their accommodations is covered. They are particularly encouraged to have their families attend the meeting so trainees on the other side of the jurisdiction of the IOA can meet and discuss common areas of concern, among other things, McCoy said.
“It is obviously therapeutic to meet people in the same boat,” McCoy said.
He added, the familiarity of the kind the IOA meeting fosters has been difficult to maintain as of late, because specialist meetings are of real interest throughout orthopaedics.
Specialists welcome
The IOA annual meeting also provides an opportunity for specialist groups within the IOA to meet, such as ones that are focused on the foot and ankle, hand, arthroplasty and spine.
“Some of our more well-developed specialist units have associations with the United Kingdom and North America,” McCoy said.
For instance, he said a U.S. hand specialty organization held one of its meetings in Ireland.
All the training provided by IOA runs in parallel and augments the training offered by the Orthopaedic Institute in Ireland, McCoy noted. – by Susan M. Rapp
- Reference:
- www.ioa.ie
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musgrave_Park_Hospital; Accessed Oct. 3, 2016.
- For more information:
- Gerard F. McCoy, MD, FRCS, can be reached at University Hospital Waterford, Dunmore Rd., Waterford, Ireland X91 ER8E; email: breda.curran@hse.ie.
Disclosure: McCoy has no relevant financial disclosures.