The BORS/BJR travelling fellowship kicked off with ORS 2023 in Dallas, Texas.
The conference started with the opening ceremony, which included a welcome by the 2022 ORS president, Professor Marjolein van der Meulen, who has been invaluable in the successful running of the conference, particularly over the last year. In the opening we also heard a keynote from Letitia Bradford. Her determination to pursue a career in arthroplasty surgery and overcome several substantial barriers was inspirational. The value of non-concordant mentorship and allyship in orthopaedics was something that struck a chord with Tom and he’s excited to take these pearls of wisdom back to the UK and inspire a new generation of diverse young minds into orthopaedic surgery
Day 2: Nidal’s work was presented in the Guest Nation (Ireland!) Workshop on skeletal mechanobiology by Professor Niamh Nowlan. He particularly enjoyed the subsequent bone mechanobiology and the cartilage and synovium sessions which introduced novel models to induce and measure bone and cartilage response to loading. Towards the end of the day, David presented his research at the foot and ankle research interest group, and to his surprise, the whole entourage attended despite it being so late in the day after a long day of talks! During his session it was also especially interesting to hear about work in this area relating to automatic coordinate systems for bone in the foot and ankle.
Day 3: Went to Denny’s American diner for breakfast to get fuelled up for a big day for poster presentations! Tom, David, Irene and Nisreen all presented their work and each captured a sizable audience and lots of great questions, a great warm up for the future presentations to come! David particularly enjoyed the special session looking at post-traumatic OA of the ankle and perspectives of engineers, physiotherpaists and orthopaedic surgeons. It highlighted that this was an under researched area and that much more is needed to improve outcomes for patients. The highlight for Irene was the research interest group on bone quality wherein some valuable and key talks were delivered by Dr Jeff Nyman, Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Bone Biology, and Assistant Professor. Chelsea Heveran from Montana State University who introduced relevant advice on how to measure bone toughness, fracture toughness and strength to facilitate effective diagnosis of osteoporosis or to introduce new ways to measure bone quality
Day 4: Nisreen enjoyed a great talk from Prof Laoise McNamara, who highlighted the development of Mechanobiology mimetic models inspired for material and bone repair. The talk summarised the use of bioinspired scaffold for bone tissue engineering, and their potential to model disease of bone therapies. For Simon, session highlights included a presentation of the biomechanics of the knee following osteotomy, and the opportunity to gain an understanding of the benefits and limitations of biplane radiographic assessment of joint movements.
Overall, ORS2023 was a testament to the hard work and dedication of many orthopaedic researchers who are pushing the boundaries of orthopaedic science. For the fellows, it was a rewarding experience filled with great company, inspiring research, and tasteful food! Next, onto Denver!
British Orthopaedic Research Society 