In total, about 300 AOTrauma faculty and chairpersons are invited to the Davos Courses each year. Many people have brought forward that the selection of faculty is not transparent, and the selection criteria are not overt to everyone. Therefore, this article explains how the Davos faculty are selected.

 

Principles courses

The Basic Principles course is designed for 120 participants in 2015, and therefore, 30 faculty will be invited. This calculation follows the rule that for every four participants, there should be one faculty member present. The Advanced Principles course will have 200 participants, and thus, 50 faculty will be attending.

 

For each Principles course, there are three groups of faculty. Group 1 is made up of the best faculty members from last year’s course, who are determined according to participants’ ratings. Group 2’s faculty is selected by the course chairs, while Group 3—constituting the largest portion of faculty—is appointed by the regions. To learn more about the breakdown of faculty according to these groups, please see the table below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Masters courses

All Masters level courses follow the Current Concepts course (CCC) format in Davos. Some of these include anatomical specimen labs, with 36 participants requiring nine faculty. Courses without these labs have 72 participants, ie, 14 faculty are necessary. For these courses, AO follows a similar concept as with the Principles courses, but using different proportions. The highest amount of faculty members are selected based on the best ratings from the previous year. This makes up Group 1. Group 2 is a free selection by course chairpersons, while Group 3 consists of faculty appointed by the regions. All chairperson should strive to ensure worldwide representation while selecting the faculty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Subspecialty courses

Finally, there are the subspecialty courses. This year, we will be offering a Hand and Wrist course, and a Pelvic course. These courses also include anatomical specimen labs and have 36 participants, ie, nine faculty. They follow a similar set up, but since they are offered only every 2 years, no faculty members from the last course are automatically re-invited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Through a well-rounded selection of faculty, the Davos Courses bring together experienced AO faculty from around the world to share the latest state-of-the-art techniques in the field of trauma and orthopedics.