On (and Off) the Record

Dear OTW Reader:

Chris Bono, M.D. finds alarming differences between abstracts and manuscripts…Air Force Major Erik Nott, M.D is awarded the Purple Heart…new funding program…news on impingement…and more…

Abstracts Not Matching Manuscripts

Christopher Bono, M.D., chief of spine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Deputy Editor of The Spine Journal is up to some eye opening research. He tells OTW, “Last year I had one of our fellows—Jeff Lehmen, M.D. —do an evaluation of all randomized controlled trials for lumbar spine that have been done in the last ten years. We were looking for inconsistencies between the abstracts and the manuscripts...we found an alarmingly high rate of inconsistencies. And these were not necessarily industry sponsored studies—some were government sponsored. Regardless, however, we found many studies that failed to include pertinent negatives and positives in the abstracts--apparently in an effort to slant some results in one way or another. Our work has just now been accepted as a poster at the International Spine Intervention Society. The solution? It all comes down to journals and reviewers ensuring that the abstract completely reflects the information in the article itself. Sometimes the abstract's conclusions are quite a ways away from what the data showed.”

Casts for Injured Fashionistas

If you’re going to suffer, do so in style…CastMedic Designs has a new line of swanky accessories for medical walking boots. It all began last summer when Christina Daves, founder of CastMedic Designs, broke her foot and had to use a walking medical boot for eight weeks. She scoured the Internet for anything to “dress-up” her boot but came up empty handed. Now, she has created over 60 products including faux-fur wraps, decorative socks, flowers, and themed buttons for children. With decorating the boots and making people feel happy and fun while wearing them, CastMedic Designs is hoping its products can help in the healing process and if not, at least put a smile on someone’s face.

New President for PA Orthopaedic Society

Dr. Greg Gallant of Doylestown has been named president of the Pennsylvania Orthopaedic Society, a professional medical specialty organization representing more than 1, 000 orthopedic surgeons in Pennsylvania. Gallant is a former president of the Bucks County Medical Society, a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and immediate past president of Doylestown Hospital’s medical staff. He serves various clinical instructor roles and is team physician for Delaware Valley College.

Foot and Ankle Popularity on the Rise

Scott Ellis, M.D., director of research for the foot and ankle service at Hospital for Special Surgery, tells OTW, “I’m thrilled that foot and ankle is gaining popularity; actually, this is the first year that we have more applicants to foot and ankle fellowships than there are spots. More and more people are realizing the draw of the specialty—namely, that not only is it fun and varied, but there are many jobs to be had. Sports medicine and foot and ankle are still working out their ‘overlaps, ’ and there are a lot of surgeons who do sports medicine and foot and ankle. Overall, there is more arthroscopy in foot and ankle now because we doing more training in arthroscopy and people are pioneering its use in the specialty. People are realizing that foot and ankle surgeons encounter so many different issues, and there are so many bones and joints in the foot, that they will never be bored. In addition, there is ample room to contribute to the research arena because this is a relatively young field.”

NASS: Outstanding Paper Award in Basic Science

Dr. Steven Leckie, a fifth-year orthopedic surgery resident at the University of Pittsburgh, and his colleagues from the Ferguson Laboratory, received the prestigious Outstanding Paper Award in Basic Science at the recent North American Spine Society (NASS) Annual Meeting. Their paper entitled “Injection of AAV2-BMP2 and AAV2-TIMP1 into the Nucleus Pulposus Slows the Course of Intervertebral Disc Degeneration in an in vivo Rabbit Model, ” will be published in The Spine Journal December 2011 issue.

New Orthopedic Hospital in the Philippines

The Tim Tebow Foundation and CURE International have announced plans to build a children’s hospital in the Philippines, the country where Tebow, the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos and a Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Florida, was born. The Tebow CURE Hospital in Davao City will be a 30-bed surgical facility focusing primarily on orthopedics; the hospital is expected to open in mid-2013.

The hospital, which is CURE’s first in the Philippines and 12th worldwide, will be on the island of Mindanao, a particularly poor area of the Philippines. About one-third of the children treated at the hospital are expected to be charity cases. The hospital will house a Timmy’s Playroom, which will provide faith, hope and love to children before and after their surgeries.

OREF, NREF Announce Grant Program

Two flagship foundations for advancing spine care through support for research, the Neurosurgery Research and Education Foundation (NREF) and the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation (OREF), have announced a collaborative grant program that will broadly cultivate multidisciplinary clinical spine research. The jointly establish Collaborative Spine Research Foundation (CSRF) will focus on advancing the science and practice of the highest quality spine care. The CSRF board of directors, comprising equal numbers of neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons, will oversee the establishment of grant and award criteria; the establishment and enforcement of conflict-of-interest standards; the recruitment of qualified, independent peer-review teams; and the development of strategies to secure financial support from spine-care stakeholders.

Thomas Lowe New VP at Millstone

Medical Outsourcing—an entity providing advanced inspection, clean room packaging, loaner kit processing, and distribution services—has announced that the company has hired Thomas C. Lowe as Vice President of Business Development. Located in Warsaw, Mr. Lowe will be responsible for developing key accounts and supporting Millstone’s medical device manufacturing customers. Lowe’s background includes more than 18 years of generating new business. Prior to Millstone, he spent 14 years with a Tier 1 supplier to the medical device industry, where he was primarily responsible for identifying, building, and managing strategic accounts. 

Biomechanics News on Impingement

Tom Brown, Ph.D., the Richard and Janice Johnston Chair of Orthopaedic Biomechanics at the University of Iowa, tells OTW, “The most interesting research here at the moment involves the impingement and dislocation of hard-on-hard total hips. There are various adverse metal on metal engagements associated with edge loading, some of which comes from impingement. We are doing finite element computer modeling, looking at adverse engagements of hard-on-hard materials and the shedding of metal debris. The effects of curvature of the lips of metal acetabular components are proving intriguing…you might think that if lips are gently curved then that would reduce high contact stress, but we are finding that the large radii of the lips means reduced acetabular coverage of the head…and more tendency to sublux and edge-load. We were very surprised at the severity of the effect; orthopedists need to know that if they have patients who are likely to impinge, then large lip curvature may not be such a good thing.”

Purple Heart for Orthopedic Surgeon

Air Force Major Erik Nott, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon with Saint Louis University (SLU), received the Purple Heart on November 7, 2011 after being wounded in Afghanistan last May. Dr. Nott is a member of an elite, eight-person medical operations unit that provides close support for military troops on special missions. That fateful day, as the military medical personnel walked away from their most recent patient, gunshots rang out. Under enemy attack, Dr. Nott recognized the severity of the situation and grabbed two of his teammates, sending them into the nearest structure as the marine special operations team and special forces snipers returned fire. During the past four years, Dr. Nott has been on missions in Afghanistan, Haiti, Croatia and Africa. When not deployed, Dr. Nott teaches residents and medical school students at SLU and cares for patients at Saint Louis University Hospital.