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Trauma Care Advances: Hard Won; Consolidated in Publication

Ongoing military engagements in the Middle East over the past 15 years have resulted in a large number of severe orthopaedic injuries. In caring for these injuries, military orthopaedists have learned many valuable lessons that can be applied to orthopaedic injuries in the civilian population. A number of these pearls have recently been consolidated into a supplement (October 2016, Volume 30, Supplement 3) published by the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma. The content of the issue has been made available for free so that all may benefit.

Topics relevant to all orthopaedists include: the prevention and treatment of infection, management of shock, updates in debridement and irrigation of traumatic wounds, the most recent research in limb salvage and amputation, management of heterotopic bone, and rehabilitation.  

Some particularly important new treatments with which we should all be familiar include: the intrepid dynamic extraskeletal orthosis (IDEO), and return to run (RTR) clinical pathway after limb threatening injury, osteointegrated prostheses and targeted muscle reinnervation in amputee care, and holistic care services after severe traumatic injury.   

I would encourage any surgeon who cares for injured patients to take advantage of this hard earned knowledge.  

Julius A. Bishop, MD
[email protected]


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