VOS 66th
Annual Meeting
Highlights
May 3-5, 2013
Mandarin Oriental Hotel
Washington, DC
By Jeff Schulman, MD
Orthopaedic Trauma
INOVA Fairfax Hospital
Falls Church, VA
VOS 66th Annual Meeting Co-Chair
On the weekend of May 3-5, 2013, the Virginia Orthopaedic Society brought its Annual Meeting to the beautiful Mandarin Oriental Hotel in downtown Washington, DC. Overall, the meeting was a great success on many counts with a fantastic turnout by meeting participants and industry partners. Even though the Cherry Blossoms were a few weeks past their prime, the weather was fantastic, which gave all involved a beautiful spring weekend to enjoy our nation’s Capital. VOS members from all corners of the state were represented and the meeting provided a nice showcase to let the northern Virginia orthopaedic community know what the Virginia Orthopaedic Society is all about.
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The VOS 66th Annual Meeting welcomed two international attendees: Dr. Chunxi Yang from the Department of Orthopeadic Surgery, the Tenth People's Hospital of Tongji University in Shanghai, China, and Dr. Xuejun Du, from the Department of Orthopedic surgery, Xinxiang Medical University in Henan, China.
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The meeting was highlighted by four invited keynote speakers. We were lucky to have AAOS president Joshua Jacobs, MD, who was in town for the overlapping Board of Councilors Meeting, come by and provide an update on the current status of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. While he touched on many topics, his talk was certainly centered around a heavy dose of politics and policy. Most notably, the AAOS is heavily involved in discussions around in-office ancillary exemptions and replacement of the SGR.
David Jevsevar, MD, of Intermountain Healthcare in Utah spoke about bundled payments in orthopaedics and the future of value-based purchasing. As the Medical Director of Orthopaedics at Intermountain Health, he spoke of his first hand experience with developing a bundled payment system across the multiple hospitals of his institution. Key points included the importance of data analysis, reporting, and benchmarking across his system, which subsequently allowed better physician/hospital alignment in the quest for higher quality and lower cost patient care.
Clinical keynote speakers included Scott Mair, MD, from the University of Kentucky and Michael McKee, MD, from the University of Toronto. Dr. Mair, a sports medicine specialist, spoke on the arthroscopic management of rotator cuff tears, including specific technical aspects of partial thickness as well as massive tears. Dr. McKee addressed the current literature and thinking on clavicle fractures. Over the last seven to eight years, Dr. McKee has been one of the main international authors that have attempted to debunk the classic teaching that all clavicle fractures do well with non-operative management. He presented his data on randomized controlled trials of operative and non-operative management of clavicle fractures, including patient satisfaction and functional outcome scores. Ultimately, Dr. McKee attempted to shed light on which fractures in which subset of patients are those whose outcome can be improved with surgical repair. Additionally, our keynote speakers were gracious enough to assist in moderating a few heated clinical debates. Our two trauma debates included ORIF vs Arthroplasty for Proximal Humerus Fractures and The Timing of Surgical Intervention for Open Fractures. The two sports debates included Single Versus Double Row Rotator Cuff Repairs and Medial Portal Versus Trans-tibial Drilling for ACL Reconstruction.
Multiple non-orthopaedic colleagues were invited to provide current updates on topics of interest to the practicing orthopaedist. These talks all proved to be quite interesting, poignant, and very well received by all those in attendance. Christopher Moore, MD, an infectious disease specialist from UVa, gave an interesting case-based presentation to illustrate the current thinking on orthopaedic infections. Christine Isaacs, MD, an OB/GYN from VCU spoke on issues related to the pregnant orthopaedic patient. Specifically, she touched on evaluation and management of the orthopaedic trauma patient, issues related to taking x-rays on a pregnant patient and the peri-operative management of breastfeeding. Beth Rubinstein, MD, a Rheumatologist from VCU spoke about the peri-operative management of Disease Modifying Anti-Rheumatic Drugs (DMARD’s). Robert Downs, MD, an Endocrinologist from VCU, discussed the orthopaedist’s role in diagnosing and managing osteoporosis.
Last, but certainly not least, the Society received many high quality abstracts to consider for presentation at the Annual Meeting. Overall, the program committee was quite impressed with the quality of research that is occurring within the Virginia orthopaedic community. Eleven abstracts were chosen for podium presentations and over 40 other abstracts were accepted for poster presentation. The best overall podium presentation was awarded to James Flint, MD, respresenting a research team from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for their work on bone mineral density in their amputee population.
On behalf of my program committee co-chair, Seth Cheatham, MD (VCU), we want to thank all those who attended one last time. The feedback from the meeting was fantastic and all who attended had a very educational and enjoyable time during our weekend in Washington, DC. We look forward to seeing everyone for another great program at next year’s Annual Meeting in Roanoke, VA.

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PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS
2013 Annual Meeting Co-Chairs |
Dr. Seth A. Cheatham is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at VCU Medical Center. After completing a fellowship in sports medicine at the University of Kentucky, he returned to Richmond in 2009. Aside from his clinical duties, Dr. Cheatham also serves as a team physician for Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia Union University. |
Dr. Jeff Schulman completed his Orthopaedic training locally with residency at George Washington University and Fellowship training at the R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland. Since training, he has spent the last five years as an Orthopaedic Traumatologist at the Level One Trauma Center at INOVA Fairfax Hospital in Northern Virginia. |
Hugh Bryan, MD Accepts The VOS Career Award
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The 2013 VOS Career Award was presented to Hugh M. Bryan III, MD by Jonathan E. Isaacs, MD, Outgoing President of VOS. |
I was truly honored and humbled to receive the VOS Career Award at the Annual Meeting. I am honored because the Virginia Orthopaedic Society has been an important part Annual Meetings have been superb with great CME offerings. The VOS meetings have been a great place to network with orthopaedic surgeons from around the commonwealth, get advice from experts and meet the consultants who treat some of my most difficult patients.
I am humbled to be included in the list of former recipients. This list includes current and previous chairs of orthopaedic residency training programs. There are pioneers and innovators of orthopaedic surgery known not just in Virginia, but throughout the United States. There is even a member of the Governor’s cabinet on the list.
I join three former presidents of the Medical Society of Virginia as recipients of this award. In addition to its focus on CME, VOS has become a great partner with MSV. I was proud to be part of the first VOS group that did White Coats on Call to lobby in Richmond. We educated the legislators on orthopaedic issues including the Workers’ Compensation program. We need to work on the issues of multiple procedures and assistant surgeons which sometimes results in some outlier surgical fees in excess of $50,000. However, our legislators now have a better understanding of the WC system in Virginia which ensures lower overall costs to employers and excellent access to care for injured workers.
Thank you again for this honor.
Hugh Bryan, MD

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