A meeting on new products
A few weeks ago I met Matthias Walker of Medartis, Switzerland, who presented the company's upcoming products.
Companies investing in developing the technology available to surgeons are worth engaging with, because the instruments and implants available are a real constraint on what can be done well.
What implants and instruments actually do
A large part of upper limb surgery depends on hardware. When a bone around the shoulder is broken into several pieces, holding those pieces in the right position while they heal usually means a plate contoured to the shape of the bone and a set of screws placed along particular lines through it. The design determines how many screws can be placed, at what angles, and how firmly they lock into the plate, and that in turn affects whether a fracture in soft bone can be held at all.
The instruments matter for the same reason. Guides, drills, retractors and the devices used to position bone fragments are what make a technique reproducible rather than something that works only in ideal conditions. Whether an operation is the right choice for a particular fracture depends on the individual patient, the pattern of the break and their general health. Individual results vary.
Why surgeons meet device companies
Devices used in surgery are designed by engineers, but the problems they are meant to solve are described by surgeons. A meeting like this one is where a company shows what it intends to release and asks the surgeons who will use it what is wrong with it: which step of the operation is awkward, which instrument does not reach, which size is missing from the range, which part of the sequence is easy to get wrong when the anatomy is unusual.
From the surgeon's side, seeing a product before it reaches theatre allows time to work out where it would and would not be useful, and to compare it with what is already in use. Relationships with manufacturers also underpin the practical side of surgical education, since cadaveric and theatre-based training sessions generally require a company to supply the implant systems and instrumentation being taught. Keeping those conversations going is part of how the technical standard of a unit is maintained.
Related information
- Our post on the shoulder fracture course, run with Medartis
- Our post on proximal humeral fractures
- Shoulder injuries
- Shoulder surgery