An interview with Dr Scott Sigman
Dr Kenneth Cutbush was interviewed by Dr Scott Sigman for The Ortho Show podcast. A wide-ranging discussion about orthopaedics, surgical careers and shoulder surgery.
Where to find it
The podcast is at theorthoshow.com. The show can also be found on social media at @the_ortho_show, and Dr Sigman at @scottasigmanmd_xx.
Why surgeons take part in podcasts
Surgical knowledge has traditionally moved through journals, conference presentations and personal contact between surgeons. A long form interview does something those formats do not. Journals carry results but very little of the reasoning that led to a study, and a ten minute conference paper has no room for the history of a technique or for the mistakes made along the way. A conversation of an hour has room for all of it.
That makes the format useful to surgeons earlier in their careers in particular. How a subspecialty is chosen, how a fellowship year is used, how a practice is built, how research is fitted around an operating list, and what a surgeon would do differently are all things that are rarely written down anywhere. Podcasts aimed at orthopaedic surgeons have become one of the more accessible ways of passing that on, and they travel further than a meeting held in one city.
What a shoulder and upper limb practice covers
Orthopaedics is a broad specialty, and most surgeons concentrate their practice on one region of the body after completing general orthopaedic training. A shoulder and upper limb practice is built around a recognisable set of problems: instability, where the joint dislocates or feels as though it is about to; tears of the rotator cuff tendons that lift and rotate the arm; impingement and bursitis causing pain with overhead use; stiffness, including frozen shoulder; arthritis of the joint surfaces; and fractures around the shoulder and upper arm.
Each of these has a range of treatment options, many of them not operative, and the assessment that decides between them relies on history, examination and imaging taken together. Concentrating a practice in one area allows a surgeon to see enough of the less common presentations to recognise them, and it supports the research and teaching that sit alongside the clinical work. Individual results vary.
Related information
- Our later post on The Ortho Show with Scott Sigman
- The shoulders page
- The shoulder surgery page
- Shoulder fellowship