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Our Team ·12 December 2018

QORA

Attendees at the QORA conference in a familiar dress code
Attendees at the QORA conference in a familiar dress code

At the QORA conference

At the Queensland Orthopaedic Registrars Association (QORA) conference, a number of attendees turned up dressed in what they take to be my own dress code.

Attendees at the QORA conference in a familiar dress code

Hilarious. Love it, and love you all.

What QORA is

The Queensland Orthopaedic Registrars Association represents orthopaedic registrars training in Queensland. Registrars are qualified doctors who have been accepted onto the orthopaedic surgical training programme and are working through several years of supervised practice before they sit their final examinations and become fellows of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. An association of this kind organises educational meetings, represents trainees on questions of rostering, supervision and examination preparation, and gives registrars from different hospitals a way of comparing notes.

Why registrar meetings matter

Orthopaedic training in Australia is hospital based, so a registrar's experience depends a great deal on the unit they happen to be rotating through at the time. A trainee at one hospital may see a large volume of trauma and very little joint replacement. A trainee elsewhere may see the reverse. An annual conference brings the whole cohort together, which means the teaching is not limited to whatever one unit happens to do.

These meetings are also where registrars present their own research and audit work, often for the first time. Presenting to a room of peers and consultants is part of the training in itself, because a surgeon has to be able to explain and defend a case series or an unexpected finding in front of people who will ask hard questions about it.

Teaching registrars

Consultant surgeons teach registrars in theatre, in clinic and at meetings of this kind, and most regard it as a core part of the job rather than something added on to it. A trainee learns the technical steps of an operation in theatre, but learns judgement, which cases to operate on and which to leave alone, largely through discussion. The standard of orthopaedic surgery in Queensland in ten years' time depends on how well that is done now.

Related information

See our shoulder fellowship page for information on subspecialty training after the registrar years, and our research page.