The teaching conferences at UTMB cover a broad variety of topics, and
are scheduled to minimize conflicts with clinical responsibilities.
Orthopaedic surgery teaching conference is held every Wednesday
morning for three hours. Residents and faculty are expected to make
presentations
and the responsibility rotates among the different services each
month. Cases are presented during the conference and residents are
called on to
describe radiographs and discuss differential diagnoses, final
diagnoses, and treatment options. A morbidity and mortality conference
is conducted monthly.
Fracture Conference is held every Monday morning to discuss
management of recent trauma cases. This conference is structured to
demand active
participation from the residents to help them prepare for their
oral Board examination.
Most of the services hold weekly planning conferences to review
recent operative cases, discuss preoperative planning for upcoming cases
and provide teaching
sessions for the residents rotating on the service.
Journal Club is held monthly to review selected articles of interest in leading orthopaedic journals.
The orthopaedic Research Committee meets weekly on Tuesdays. Ongoing research activities are discussed, with teaching staff and
residents participating when their projects are under discussion.
All orthopaedic surgery residents PGY 2 and above are funded to
attend an educational conference each year. PGY 2 residents attend a
resident’s basic fracture course to learn techniques of internal
fixation. PGY 3 residents attend a prosthetics and orthotics course
or an advanced resident’s basic fracture course. PGY 4 residents
attend Dr. William Enneking’s orthopaedic pathology course held in
Florida.
PGY 5 residents attend the annual meeting of the American
Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
Every year, the entering PGY 1’s receive several textbooks from
the department, including Rockwood and Green’s Fractures in Adults
and Children (all three volumes), Miller’s Review of
Orthopaedics, and Hoppenfeld’s Surgical Exposures in Orthopaedics. In
the subsequent
four years, residents receive a generous allotment of textbooks
appropriate to the clinical services through which they will rotate.
The G.W.N. Egger’s lectureship is held each spring. Egger’s
weekend is a three-day program with a variety of speakers. Recent topics
have included the spine, the knee, sports medicine, oncology,
and pediatric orthopaedics. A number of outside speakers as well as
local
faculty and program alumni contribute to the program. The
Egger’s conference also serves as the annual reunion for the orthopaedic
alumni of UTMB. In addition, a sports medicine conference is
held each summer, covering a variety of sports-related topics.
Assessment
Feedback is an important component of any educational experience.
Students need to know what they are doing well and what they need to
improve. At the end of each three-month rotation, the faculty
will evaluate each resident’s performance, complete an evaluation form,
and review it with each resident. The evaluation is based on the
ACGME core competencies (medical knowledge, patient care,
practice-based
learning and improvement, interpersonal and communication
skills, professionalism, and system-based practice) with some additional
questions
unique to orthopaedic residents. Residents, likewise, are given
the opportunity to anonymously evaluate the educational experience of
each
rotation and critique the teaching skills of the faculty
members.
An important measure of each resident’s progress is the annual
Orthopaedic In Training Examination (OITE) developed by the American
Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Studies have demonstrated that
success on the OITE correlates well with success in passing the written
certifying examination given by the American Board of
Orthopaedic Surgery. Residents whose performance on the OITE is less
than expected
will be given additional remedial course work to help them
improve their knowledge of orthopaedics.
Learning Resources
A library with current texts, CD-ROMs, and journals is available
in the orthopaedic residents’ office 24 hours a day. Eight IBM
compatible computers with appropriate software are available for
use by the residents. These computers are connected to the campus
broadband network, allowing access to the Internet and the
National Library of Medicine.
All residents are given a subscription to the American and
British volumes of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. In addition,
PGY 4 and PGY 5 residents are eligible to become candidate
members of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Candidate
members
receive the Academy’s Instructional Course Lecture volume as
benefit of their status. Residents are awarded with incentives for doing
well on the Orthopaedic In Training Examination.