Arriving in San Antonio
Attending a two-day shoulder course in San Antonio, Texas, led by Dr Stephen Burkhart, covering current arthroscopy and joint replacement methods.
Just arrived, and having an early dinner with colleagues from Melbourne and representatives from Arthrex. Looking forward to picking up arthroscopic techniques, particularly for instability reconstruction and shoulder replacement.
The two areas covered
Instability reconstruction and shoulder replacement make up a large part of most shoulder practices. Instability surgery is for shoulders that dislocate or come close to it, and the aim is to restore the structures that hold the ball in the socket, whether by repairing torn soft tissue, by replacing bone that has been lost from the socket rim, or both. Shoulder replacement is for a joint whose cartilage surfaces are worn out or whose structure has failed, and the worn surfaces are replaced with metal and plastic components. Individual results vary.
Why surgeons travel for courses
Technique in both areas has changed considerably, and continues to. Attending a course run by surgeons who developed or refined a method gives access to the reasoning behind it, not just the published description. It also gives access to the things that are rarely written down: the cases where the method is the wrong choice, the steps that most often cause trouble, and the ways around the problems that arise.
A course also brings together surgeons from different countries, working in different health systems and with different case mixes. Hearing how a colleague elsewhere handles the same problem is a useful corrective to assuming that local practice is the only reasonable approach.
Related information
See our post on the Cowboy Way Shoulder Course that followed, and our pages on shoulder instability, anatomic total shoulder replacement and reverse total shoulder replacement.