The launch
Dr Kenneth Cutbush spoke at the January 2020 launch of the Queensland Unit for Advanced Shoulder Research (QUASR) at Queensland University of Technology. The launch coincided with a successful ITTC grant application, reported at over $8 million over four years, made jointly with QUT and other universities.
Statistics and individual patients
The argument put in the speech was that medical statistics should inform care without displacing attention to the individual patient. Prosthetic joint infection served as the example: it is uncommon when expressed as a percentage, which is a reasonable way to describe it across a population, but for the person who develops one it is a serious event with substantial personal cost. Both facts are true at once, and a surgeon has to hold both.
The related point was that concentrating research on narrow fields, such as shoulder biomechanics, allows care to be tailored more closely to individuals and allows a group to build and share depth in one area rather than spreading thinly.
With thanks
With thanks to the industry partners, Wright Medical, Zimmer Biomet, Surgical Specialties and Materialise, to colleague Ashish Gupta, to colleagues at QUT, and to the fellows and students involved.
Related information
See also our posts on the QUASR launch group photo and the QUT ITTC grant.