A Resident’s Perspective on Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Liana J. Tedesco, MD

COVID-19 has turned the world upside down. As the virus spread across the United States, every person had to take a step back and reevaluate within the context of a new normal. With elective surgery canceled to preserve personal protective equipment and maximize intensive care unit (ICU) capacity, many orthopaedic surgery residents were redeployed to assist in emergency rooms and ICUs. With new roles in the hospital, and social distancing preventing large group learning, we have had to reexamine our plans for continued resident education. We had to take inventory of our resources and take advantage of the technology at our disposal.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Orthopaedic Residency Training

Riikka E. Koso, MD; Matthew Y. Siow, MD, MBA

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about near-universal cessation of elective surgeries and noncritical clinic visits around the nation. In addition, government mandated stay-at-home orders decreased the number of people sustaining injuries in everyday activities, reducing the volume of new patients requiring acute orthopaedic interventions. Many orthopaedic surgery programs have changed residents’ rotations to balance safety, training, and continued delivery of urgent and emergent orthopaedic care. Although stay-at-home orders and restrictions on elective surgeries have been lifted in some areas, many changes may last long beyond the pandemic.

What About Whiplash?

Terry Stanton

The “whiplash” scenario may have presented itself to you as an orthopaedic surgeon: You cared for a patient with neck pain after a motor vehicle crash, and then were called to give a deposition during which lawyers implied that despite your training in biomechanics during residency, you were not “expert enough” to testify about whether the patient’s clinical presentation made medical sense given the facts of the crash.