February 2021

Notice from the EHS ExCom to all members

Two positions on the EHS board will become vacant this autumn: President (2023-25) and Secretary General (2021-25). According to our constitution, any EHS member can apply and successful candidates will be democratically voted in during the General Assembly at our 14^th EHS Congress in Lille (9-10th September 2021).

To apply for the role of President or Secretary General, please send:-

• a declaration of intention (specific & detailed plans for the society throughout the term)
• a recommendation letter from 20 EHS members from a minimum of 4 different EHS member countries
• brief CV and a list of PubMed publications

Deadline for receiving candidates: 31^st March 2021

Email applications to EHS Membership Secretary, Samantha Stokes at samstokesehs@gmail.com

Presidential Address

Dear EHS Members & Friends, 

Covid, Covid, Covid again and again Covid!!!… so-called “Chinese virus”, English variant, South African variant, Brazilian variant… What else???…

After the postponement of several congresses over the past year and the setting up of “numerous virtual meetings aimed at making this type of streaming meeting as interactive as possible”, EFORT recently decided to make certain parts of its meeting of June 2021 of a hybrid nature, “perhaps with local participation or even host live hubs in selected regions of Europe and connect via the Internet”… Likewise, the World Arthroplasty Congress (WAC) which was to be held in Munich in May 2021 could be altered in the same way towards a “hybrid” congress. At EHS, we have already decided to switch to the same hybrid model for our Lille congress in September 2021… 

What’s up???…

Same planet, another world… We must learn how to live a different orthopaedic life. This pandemic could be a fantastic opportunity to change our minds about everything and fully embrace all the promising and attractive new technologies. So far, we have made more progress over the past ten months than over the past ten years in terms of “remote” communication… we have become familiar with these new technologies. Soon as a step forward we will learn more and more with “virtual” or “mixed” reality in orthopaedic surgery… “between reality and virtuality”!…

Artificial Intelligence will be present everywhere… Within our connected operating room, we will operate on our patients in a safer and better way with instruments guided on a more precise preop planning to treat more precise diagnoses. AI and data analytics “will make healthcare more efficient while improving clinical quality and health-related outcomes” through the routine use of robot-assisted surgery. The ultimate challenge in an atmosphere made unhealthy by viruses would be remote surgeries for connected patients, not only for follow-up visits but also in the operating room for hip replacements!…

Same planet, another world… Welcome aboard!…

Best regards to each of you and stay safe!

Jean-Alain Epinette, MD

EHS President 2018-2021

EHS Ambassador of the Month, Jean Marc Puch

Dear Colleagues,

It has been a great pleasure and honour to get involved within the EHS Community as the National Representative for France… I have been an active member of your Scientific Society for many years, and today, it is a great pride to have been asked to be “the Ambassador of the Month”!… Hence, I would like to send you fraternal and friendly greetings from the South of France, from the charming city of Nice, where I am an orthopaedic surgeon in liberal practice, at the same time as a happy father and recently happy grandfather, so the life is beautiful despite the sanitary crisis!

Regarding my surgical curriculum, I received an attractive and fruitful orthopaedic training in the service of Prof Claude Argenson at the University Hospital of Nice but also with Dr Jacques Tabutin at the Cannes hospital and with Prof Jean Luc Lerat and Bernard Moyen at the Edouard Herriot University Hospital in Lyon. So, I quickly became interested in hip and knee matters. Moreover, Jacques Tabutin brought me the basics of hip arthroplasty and the intricacies of hip revision surgeries, while Jean Luc Lerat getting me familiar with the “mini posterolateral approach”! We were in 1990!! How time flies!!!!…

I have worked from 1993 till now in “Clinique St George” which is a private institution in Nice. Very soon I got interested in scientific matters, linked to my surgical practice, and thus after 7 years of activities, with four friends who are private orthopaedic surgeons, we created here a working group called the “Groupe Orthopédique du Sud” i.e. GOS!

Our main prosthetic options within this group are focusing on HA-coated cementless collared straight stems, systematically matched with Dual Mobility cups for almost all patients!… All hip records of ours have been duly registered for the past 20 years and allow us to continuously evaluate more than 6,000 cases from
three surgeons in two centres. Of course, in no case we blame the choice for cement in hip replacement; however, in our practice, and thanks to our satisfying clinical results, I currently use cementless stems in 99% of cases. While fitting a cementless stem I aim to respect the bone, so my philosophy cannot be any “Fit and Fill” option: I don’t like huge cementless stems fully filling the femur… from my personal view, it’s a North American philosophy, upon which trust is more placed in metal than in bone. So, I systematically use the smallest stem, provided it is stable in rotation, subsidence being controlled by the collar. Moreover, keeping right with the native neckshaft angle is critical and for the past 10 years I have fitted shortened stems, upon the specific “Calcar guided stem” option perioperatively. This new way of thinking defended by several European teams is really a new paradigm in arthroplasty hip surgery.

With regards to my scientific involvements, I joined our French Society of Hip and Knee surgery (SFHG) in 2014 and was elected in 2016 to sit in its executive committee. ln line with these French commitments, I have been the director of several National Symposia, and will be the co-president of the organization
committee for the next annual Spring meeting of the SFHG, which has been scheduled in Villefranche-sur-Mer, nearby Nice, next March 2021, hoping that Covid matters would not oblige to any postponement, and allowing us anyway to welcome European surgeons to join us in such a pleasant venue!

My aims as becoming one of your ambassadors are to share with my European colleagues my quite specific “French” experience while participating in EHS supported meetings and congresses on behalf of our scientific community, and at the same time to help in best promoting European Hip Society renown
here in France. As final words, I must keep hoping that thanks to the vaccine I will have the great pleasure to meet with all my European friends and colleagues, face-to-face at the coming 2021 Lille congress next September, and address to each of them right now my very best regards.

Dr Jean Marc Puch MD, Nat Rep for France

Obituary: Larry Dorr 1941-2020, Larger than Life

Following Medical School at the University of Iowa, Dr Dorr served his Internship at LAC-USC Medical Center in Los Angeles. He served his country as Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy Medical Corps, in California and Florida from 1967-71. He then went to the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York (1976-7) to learn joint replacement under Dr Chitranjan Ranawat, who was his mentor and hero. 

Dr Dorr never shied away from the most difficult hip and knee joint problems and successfully specialized in developing joint replacement surgery: his unique combination of surgical talent, innovation and scientific impact helped steer the field for over five decades. He was also an avid writer, with hundreds of peer-reviewed manuscripts, book chapters and books on joint replacement.

Dr Dorr was a Founder of The Knee Society, The Hip Society, AAHKS (American Academy of Hip and Knee Surgeons) and The Bone and Joint Institute in Los Angles, and a member of very many orthopaedic associations, including of course our own EHS.

In 1996 he launched Operation Walk, a non-profit organization providing free joint replacement for people in underserved countries which today has operated over 13,000 people including in Cuba, China, Nepal, Philippines, El Salvador, Tanzania, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama and Vietnam. Operation Walk will carry on his legacy.

Dr Dorr’s accolades are abundant and include three “Humanitarian of the Year” awards (from American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons in 2005, from the Iowa Orthopedic Society in 2007 and AAHKS in 2017).

Dates for your diary: EBOT Interim and Final Exams

• Interim exam: Tuesday, 23 March 2021 10:00 to 13:00 CET – more info a& registration through www.ebotexam.org/interim
• Final exam: Written part on Wednesday 16th June 2021 10:00 to 13:00 CET
• Oral part (in English): Saturday & Sunday 02 & 03 October 2021
• Oral part (in Spanish): November 2021 (details to be confirmed)

Application for the final exam via www.ebotexam.org, application deadline: 31st March 2021 11:59 CET

Qs & further info: ebotexam@efort.org