
The Inaugural AAC Residents Course was held January 2019 in Toronto, chaired by Drs. Laurie Hiemstra and Cathy Coady. Many thanks to our faculty, Brendan Sheehan, Nathan Urquhart, Darren De Sa, John Grant and Bogdan Matache. Thanks also to Sara Sparavalo and Trinity Wittman for helping to organize the logistics.
A two-hour lecture session started out the evening. It was a power session covering all the topics in 2 hours. A mix of cases, mini lectures and videos, we filled their heads with stage appropriate knee surgery topics including ACL graft choice, the role of the anterolateral ligament, patellar instability, meniscal root repair, PCL reconstruction and the approach to the multi-ligament knee.
Worn out, we retired to the lobby bar for networking and socializing. Possibly the most important part of the meeting, as we got to know each other and were able to talk about orthopaedics, life, residency, finding a job and any topic they wanted to approach us with.
Sunday morning began at the Conmed head office with coffee and breakfast snacks thoughtfully provided by Conmed. As the coffee entered our systems, John Grant when through a video of a knee arthroscopy, giving tips and tricks and hints for successful arthroscopy. Five lab stations were set up with Donnie knees for the residents to work on. We suggested arthroscopy, meniscal repair, ACL to start. MPFL, PCL as they desired. A knot tying station was set up in the corner for use if their partner was using the scope. This was very popular, and Bogdan Matache imparted his knot tying knowledge to all. We ended the session with a knee examination session, covering a complete patellar instability examination, ACL examination, dial test and other rotatory instability tests.
