The 2013 BOA Annual Congress in Birmingham has been heralded as a watershed event. Delegates travelled in numbers unseen for many years, from all across the UK. As a result, both the lecture theatres and exhibition hall reverberated with a buzz that signalled a revival for this great event.
The BOA Congress also signalled the arrival of a novel and unique method of Medical Education and training. In the early morning hours, the rainy autumnal Birmingham streets awoke to the sound of the Arthrex Mobile Surgical Skills Lab as it arrived in Centenary Square and parked centre stage outside the ICC Congress Centre (pictured). Over the three days of the Congress, hundreds of BOA delegates were invited on board the lab to try their hand at Arthroscopic surgery-learning, and practise novel techniques and experience the benefits of this unique educational facility.
The concept of the Mobile Lab (the first of its kind in Europe) has been developed by the Medical Education department at Arthrex. The vision is based upon the principal belief that surgical-skills education should be as accessible and convenient as possible for the surgeons and healthcare professionals involved in these (often less invasive) orthopaedic procedures. Consultant surgeons, fellows, registrars and scrub teams alike can benefit from training in a dry or wet lab setting at a time and location of their convenience.
The excitement and impact of the Mobile Lab over the course of the BOA was such that the BOA organising committee awarded a Special Commendation Award to Arthrex for “their innovation in introducing the Mobile Laboratory.” The award was presented as part of the closing ceremony in the packed main auditorium by BOA President Martyn Porter (pictured).
The essence of the Mobile Lab concept is movement, and as soon as the BOA Congress came to a close, the sleek black Mobile Lab rolled out of Birmingham to visit hospitals throughout the UK – providing workshops from Birmingham to Newcastle, in ACL graft preparation and reconstruction, shoulder stabilisation training and hands-on trials of distal extremity procedures and instrumentation.
As a privately held company with a unique focus on medical education, Arthrex’s commitment to bringing surgical training to centres throughout the UK is unrelenting and currently unmatched. The Mobile Lab will reach further into the UK in 2014 with more Mobile Labs currently under construction to continue to “help surgeons treat their patients better”.
Contact Arthrex to discuss the Mobile Lab visiting your hospital in 2014.
Arthrex Ltd
T: 0114 232 9180
E: teri.blythe@arthrex.co.uk
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Junior editor at Fintech Intel