The templated AOTrauma Basic Principles of Fracture Management course has been successfully running for about five years now. During this time, the Residents Education Task Force (ETF) has collected evaluation and assessment data, along with feedback on the course by participants, faculty, and chairpersons. An analysis of this data led the Residents ETF to propose an update to the course framework.

 

The AOTrauma Basic Principles course was rolled out worldwide in 2013. The overall goal of this course is to teach the AO principles of fracture management to residents around the world. To ensure that a participant gets the same valuable information irrespective of the location of the course, a templated course with defined core content was introduced. Regionally important topics are taken into consideration by offering additional optional content. This concept has proven to be very successful, and today all Basic Principles courses around the world follow a standard format.

 

Since the rollout of the Basic Principles course, a large amount of evaluation and assessment data, together with feedback from course participants, faculty, and chairpersons, has been collected. An analysis of this data revealed that certain updates to the Basic Principles course framework are needed to reflect the current practices in fracture care. A proposal to update the course framework was put forward to the AOTrauma Education Commission in July 2017, and has been approved by the AOTEC.

 

While the Residents ETF works on finalizing the update to the course templates, an overview of the main changes is given below:

 

• The optional lecture "Violation of Principles" to be made core
• The optional lecture "Tibial plateau fractures" to be made core
• There will be a single core lecture on the "Principles of Diaphyseal Fracture Management" (including reduction techniques)
• There will be a single core lecture on the "Principles of Articular Fracture Management" (including reduction techniques)
• There will be a new core lecture on the "Principles of External Fixation"
• The core lecture "Distal Femoral Fractures" is to be made optional
• The core practical exercise "Stabilization of the Pelvic Ring using a Large External Fixator" is to be made optional

 

The template will be ready for implementation by early next year. If you as a course chairperson are interested in receiving additional information or would be willing to incorporate these changes in a course before the rollout, please contact templates@aotrauma.org.