Mike McNicholas welcomed delegates to the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds for the fourth Orthopaedic Knee Conference in November
It may have been a dull and drizzly day in Leeds from the outside, but with more than 100 delegates in attendance this year, the day’s programme was ready to deliver a host of hot topics and discussions between the chairman and the key speakers. Delegates enjoyed the opportunity to see leaders in their respective fields giving a wide-ranging update of various aspects of current therapeutic interventions for knee pathologies
In what is becoming our regular venue, the Royal Armouries Museum, with the backdrop of military warriors and artillery, Mike McNicholas led his troops with style and charm. With a packed programme and some high profile speakers in attendance, we were hoping for another year of lively debate and heated discussions, and 2019 did not disappoint.
This year’s conference had the theme of ‘Advances in knee surgery’ and the range of topics went across the spectrum of knee surgery, with sessions looking at: Preparing for the future; taking the right path in training and development; a look at the future and whether we will be replaced by robots in our working lives and is the robotic technology available at the moment worth the financial outlay; improving surgical and clinical outcomes through innovation for patients with knee problems; the management of soft tissue knee injuries and finally; the beauty and the beast of knee arthroplasty, looking at partial joint replacements and the increasingly important issue of midrange instability in total knee replacement.
As the delegates took their seats for the first session, entitled: Preparing for the future – Taking the right path in training and development, we heard from three speakers. It was an interesting start to the day, Peter Ogrodnik looked at the digital opportunities in orthopaedics, while Will Jackson and Dinesh Nathwani spoke about the future of the robotic revolution and how robots could fit into your day-to-day practice. Robotic surgery offers many benefits to patients compared with open surgery, including shorter hospital stay and faster recovery time, but is robotic-assisted technology superior to conventional methods?
The second session looked at improving surgical and clinical outcomes through innovation, with Mike Reed discussing an overview of registries’ assessments of clinical outcomes and Keith Tucker, representing ODEP and Beyond Compliance, looking at how assessments of new joint replacements will look like in years to come, with the popularity of apps and AI.
Before lunch, a special guest of the day Deiary Kader took to the podium to talk about his interesting work in war zones in the Middle East with the Red Cross and the primitive nature of trauma surgery in such bleak climates. Seeing the ugly side to war is certainly something to think about, and if anyone is considering humanitarian work, please visit www.ngmvcharity.co.uk for more information.
Last year we introduced the two abstract presentation sessions and this year the speakers judged the abstracts presented on the podium. Nick Evans, of Scarborough Hospital was awarded first prize, you can read the top three abstracts on page 20. Within the morning session we heard from Nick Evans, Anh Nguyen, Olivia O’Malley, Kodali Prasad and Ahmed Saad. OPN would like to take this opportunity to thank Omar Abouazza for taking time to review and give feedback for each of the abstract submissions we were sent. He was certainly impressed with the calibre we received this year. Omar said: “The abstract submissions this year for the Orthopaedic Knee Conference were of a high quality, covering arthroplasty, trauma and soft tissue knee topics, with submissions from across the UK, as well as Ireland and the USA. I hope that further submissions of similar quality will be made next year.”
Throughout the day, in our break-out area, a wide range of manufacturers and industry l