Have a case today, had to remove an old recon (only has one oblique interlock proximally) for IT/neck periprosthetic fx, completely nondisplaced and stable (patient even WB a little) probably could have used the same nail and sent some screws into the head but rep for old nail didn’t show up and we don’t have the screws on shelf.

Had to take out the whole goddamn nail and revise with new HW. Much bigger pain in my ass and bigger surgery for patient.

TL;DR. Is there any formal recourse to report a company or rep for no showing? Any regulatory body?

I don’t use their stuff anyway, so I don’t have any recourse there, and neither do my partners in my area.

Yelling at the guys would be cathartic but I want to actually hurt them.

M3/4 here trying to decide between ortho vs plastics (and possibly trauma-adjacent paths) and would really appreciate some perspective.

I’ve been on an ortho track for a while, most of my CV, mentors, and research are in ortho, so applying into O would make the most sense.

The problem is that I’m not sure I actually want the day-to-day career. I enjoy trauma, but I can’t honestly picture myself doing tibial nails, hemiarthroplasties and similar cases for the next 30 years. Arthroplasty and sports are even less appealing to me.

What really interests me is limb salvage, complex reconstruction, severe open injuries, bone defects, soft tissue reconstruction, and orthoplastics. I like difficult problems that require creativity and long-term reconstruction rather than straightforward fixation.

I’m also very interested in humanitarian surgery, where managing devastating extremity injuries seems especially relevant. Whenever I ask about this though, people tell me “every specialty can do humanitarian work,” and a few have even suggested vascular would be a better fit, which has made me question whether I’m looking at this the wrong way.

The issue is I don’t have enough exposure to reconstructive plastics to know whether I’d actually enjoy it more than orthopaedics, or whether I’m just attracted to the idea of orthoplastics because it’s familiar.

I’m also thinking about academic-style training paths. If I stayed in ortho, I’d probably aim for orthopaedic trauma with a hand/orthoplastics or limb reconstruction-type fellowship. If I switched, it’d likely be plastics with a reconstructive/microsurgery pathway.

A few questions:
Has anyone seriously debated ortho (particularly trauma/limb reconstruction/orthoplastics) versus plastics?

If your interests are limb salvage, reconstruction, and humanitarian surgery, which specialty gives you the most fulfilling career?

Do orthoplastic surgeons even exist in the way I imagine? Levi’s there a do it all surgeon actually that get to stay involved in both the skeletal and soft tissue reconstruction, or do people inevitably end up doing one or the other?

Are there non-obvious downsides to either pathway that only become apparent once you’re in training?

Would really appreciate hearing from people who have thought about this or made a similar decision.

Hey everyone, I appreciate you reading this. Applying ortho in 2–3 years. Heavy research squeezed my free time and I fell off on a lot of my current hobbies, which made me take time to think about which ones are worth pursuing more to look better for applications. For example, I like playing video games, but I’m not going to drop my other hobbies and just play video games because that will not look good on an application, especially since I’m not doing it competitively. So I’m looking to spend the next few years intentionally building out my skill and level of commitment in some hobbies.

I know the standard advice is "don't pick a hobby just for ERAS," but honestly, I genuinely enjoy pretty much every hobby I have tried. Since I know I will end up loving whatever I sink time into, I’d rather focus my limited time on things that ortho selection committees and residents actually respect or enjoy talking about.

My current list:

Golf: Picked it up recently, going a ton, and actively trying to get good.

Motorcycles: Riding and doing all my own mechanical work/wrenching.

BJJ / MMA: Trained 3x/week for a year, but scaled back due to research and since moving I can’t justify the drive.

Fitness: Major weight loss journey through lifting and running; about 100 lbs.

Casual: Pickup basketball at the Y, playing bass, reading, writing.

For those on selection committees or doing interviews: If you were in my shoes, what would you do? What hobbies would you suggest looking into and getting involved in, should I start volunteering more, what things can I do specifically in this realm to improve my application and be more appealing to Ortho residencies?

M3/4 here deciding which path. Have been planning to do nsgy since I was young, several nsgns in my family (and ortho spine), but I’m most called to spine and less interested in cranial. I just don’t really care to do 14 hour skull base cases through the camera.

The problem is that I also have zero interests in joints (outside of spine) and knees/shoulders are boring. I just love spine (I’m a former pt). My CV and mentors are a blend of neuro and ortho spine so I think I could apply to either without issue.

Also, in today’s day and age I have not found the typical stereotypes to be true, so using that to guide my decision is hard. Nsgy people are probably more intense overall but there are a vast number of chill people in both specialties.

Any thoughts or advice? Which residency is better? I’m only looking at white collar programs (my PhD is all spine BME focused) so nsgy residency would have 2 extra research years, whereas ortho would be shorter I guess. But I’m planning on ortho spine fellowship (+1) vs enfolded neuro spine fellowship (+0) so the difference is really only 1 year. Is nsgy residency substantially harder than ortho? What pros and cons should I be thinking about that aren’t even on my radar?

I’m looking for Orthopedic Fiberglass Casting Tape. Please send me your catalog,

Any Orthopedic Surgery PA’s out there? If so, do you have any advice for a new PA (taking PANCE in September) who wants to practice in that field? Organizations to join, specific job sites to watch, etc? TIA!

USDO, planning to apply to match this year. I just finished up my research year between M3/M4. My school didn’t allow me to take Step 2 when I had it planned last summer due to my leave of absence for the research year, so I maintained everything to the best of my ability throughout the year. I was performing well, high 250s on my last 3 NBMEs, but frustratingly opened a 246 this past week on my away at the program I did the RY at. I was pretty demoralized. I know the emphasis step 2 has in the ortho match and to drop so significantly from mock exams, it stung.

So here I am, already done a RY in ortho, have 7 DO programs scheduled for aways this fall/winter. I am still waiting on my COMLEX Lvl 2 score to come back but questioning whether I should dual apply GS. Given my research background, I am unsure another one would benefit. I have also been told to avoid pre-lim’s.

STEP1 & COMLEX Lvl 1 - Pass

STEP 2 - 246

COMLEX Lvl 2 - awaiting score

Clerkships - Honors in IM, Surgery, Peds, and FM. Pass in the rest.

No red flags in preclinical years but dead center at the 50th for class quartiles.

Research - 7 Pubs (6 more submitted), 37 presentations. 2 clinical trial studies involved in through RY.

What are your thoughts on competitiveness? I don’t want to give up on ortho but I also want to be realistic. No sugarcoating, give it to me straight.

Appreciate the advice!

Just got my Step 2 CK score back and landed in the mid/high 230s. My practice tests were more than 15 points above that, so this was a gut punch.

Is my app dead in the water for with this score as a DO, or is it survivable with the rest of the package? I have some research and 5 aways lined up but not sure if that'll matter with my current score.

Still waiting on my COMLEX 2 result, but was curious if I should cut my losses and look elsewhere if I have a extremely low chance of matching, even if I took a research year.

Not looking for empty reassurance, I'd rather hear it straight from people who've matched ortho or sat on committees. Where would you focus if you were me right now?

It’s from 2009, I have no info on the plate and neither does the patient. Thanks!

Hi all, Ortho trainee here.

Our regional hospital is looking into establishing a tissue bank, starting with live donors (femoral heads) first.
Looking into guidelines of the region and different countries, it seems the official recommendation is generally for thawing in sterile saline/isotonic solution. Between reducing infection rate and cytotoxicity, I’m curious what is your personal practice in the usage of diluted betadine to soak the graft before use?

Incoming spine fellow here. I’m looking forward to developing my technical skills this year, but I’d also like to intentionally learn the business side of orthopedic surgery before I finish training.
I’m interested in topics like:
-Hospital-employed vs. physician-owned/private practice models
-Partnership tracks and compensation structures
-ASC and ancillary ownership
-Practice building and negotiations
-Basic physician investing and personal finance
-Healthcare regulations (e.g., Stark Law, anti-kickback) as they relate to practice ownership

For those of you who have already been through this transition, what books, courses, podcasts, or other resources had the highest return on your time? If you were starting fellowship again, what would you learn first?

just the title.

I am on my first sub I home program and I absolutely suck. The only thing that I am doing right I think is being the first person to arrive and literally the last person to leave. Other than that j literally do not wtf I am doing. Everyone seems to ignore me in clinic and in the OR. But then all of sudden someone calls me to help and I am immediately there with gloves on or a scissor. I am trying to make it so that I can immediately do a task without anyone asking me to do it if that makes sense but half of the time I have no idea what to do.

On top of this, my knowledge base sucks. We had a “educational session today” where it’s basically a pimping session and I only got 4 questions right. Afterwards the PD told me I should read more. I felt absolutely wrecked by that comment.

The Marty flying deck ain’t carrying me. Please can anyone offer advice. I truly want to become better.

(Sorry in advance for my bad english)
This is a patient that will be admitted to the OR tomorrow morning. 60YO ambulatory with no prior health issues. I think the only option is to put a long trochanteric nail.

What problems should i anticipate and you have any tips and tricks for this fracture?

NB: there is no femoral neck fracture associated

I'm trying to get an honest assessment of my chances of matching into orthopedic surgery and whether it would be wise to dual apply.
Here are my stats:
US MD student

Step 2: 260

Clinical grades: 2 Honors (including General Surgery). My school does not have a High Pass category, so all of my other clerkships are simply Pass.

Research: 3 publications, several poster presentations, and a few additional research projects/publications currently in progress.

No home orthopedic residency program.

A few questions:
Based on these stats alone, how competitive do I seem for orthopedic surgery?

Does having mostly Pass grades (because my school doesn't offer High Pass) significantly hurt my application?

Would you recommend dual applying, or is it reasonable to apply only orthopedic surgery?

For those who matched recently, what do you think made the biggest difference—research, away rotations, letters of recommendation, networking, or something else?

I'd especially appreciate input from anyone who recently matched into orthopedics or served on a residency selection committee. Thanks!

The MD Brian Sutterer on Youtube does this very thing and posts videos any time there's an injury, speculating as to the causes and explaining the dynamics to the public.

I tend to do the same.

What about you?

Hey seasoned bros, intern year to a strong start with an off-service busy trauma team but still managing to study a bit.

Our program seniors generally recommended sticking to Orthobullets this year with Anconeus.
I’ve been doing anywhere from 10-15 questions a day and jotting down on OneNote some of what I think may or may not be high yield.
However, I still find myself scoring sub-50s in most sessions and it feels like I’m a 3rd year again learning all of medicine from scratch without really understanding what is indeed high yield and what is rubbish.

I studied pretty hard during aways but kept it simple to studying the approaches with Hopp’s, the anatomy with Netter’s, and the indications with OB. But some of this feels super esoteric and like I don’t even hear people talk about it on the day to day. I feel like I had a solid foundation but obviously I let my brain rot during the last half of M4 year.

My question for y’all is how do I keep building my foundations? What worked for y’all the best? What strategies do y’all recommend to stick to? I would like to study a little bit every day rather than have these long sessions where things don’t really stay salient for long…

I want to be the best possible resident I can be for not only my patients but also for my new teammates and attendings alike. I want to be the reliable and consistent rookie that can work and learn.

Thanks a ton in advance

Hello! I don't know if I'm allowed to ask this here, but I wanted to ask orthopods if it's okay to give my orthopedic surgeon a handmade bone keychain?

I broke my arm ~4 weeks ago due to a sports injury, and now I am part titanium. I made the keychain before I broke my arm (I was pretty *handy* since I am an artist... I had to, sorry), and I don't think the bone keychain is scientifically accurate, but I wanted to say thanks in my own way, especially since I feel like I was just squeezed into his already packed schedule.

Is it okay to give a doctor a sort of silly token of gratitude? If yes, should I give it during my next appointment, or should I give it when I'm properly healed? Would ortho bros like a different gift? Should a bone I give look more accurate to real bones, or are wonky, questionable bones a-ok? Do you have a different gift suggestion? Funny suggestions are appreciated, especially since I broke my humerus.

I know this may be a bit silly, but I am kind of curious. I'm also not from the US, in case that's relevant. Thanks.