“Excellent course. It was very useful and I learnt a lot especially the direct clinical application”
On the 5th December 2011 the MSk Lab ran an Acetabular Science and Technology Workshop, involving: 2 lecturers – Mr Derek McMinn and Professor Cobb – talking about the clinical applications and associated issues, five companies and twenty trainees hungry to develop their surgical knowledge.
I was prepared for a host of hitches, being the first time we had run this course, but it all ran very smoothly receiving extremely positive feedback from the companies and attendees alike. In the morning sessions there were presentations from B Braun, Ceramtec, JRI, Mathys and Stryker, giving an overview of their products and the differences between them. After some brain stimulation (lunch) and networking time, the afternoon games commenced.
Each company had a workstation with a prosthetic hip and dry bone, into which the trainees had to impact the acetabular cups in a simulation surgery. It gave them hands on experience using the different components that had been spoken about in the morning session.
To give the afternoon a competitive edge, trainees were scored on their accuracy whilst using the robotic arm and navigation tool at the MSk Lab (Imperial College London) workstation. Prizes were awarded to James Wong: 1st and Alvin Chen: 2nd place – it was a close run competition, but little did the attendees expect that the winner would be an engineer! (Dr Susannah Clarke is currently working on a hip project in the MSk Lab)
Pictures of the course can be found here: http://bit.ly/NOuVN1