IC: 205

Title: Complications – Surgeons’ Worst Enemy & Best Teacher

Course Description:

Not ‘if’ but ‘when’ – complications are an inevitable part of life as a surgeon. Although sometimes simple in theory, dealing with complications represents a challenge for many of us, and our response to these difficult events and the patients affected by them speaks to our effectiveness as physicians. Young surgeons, in particular, are often unprepared for the bouts of failure that lay ahead.

Yet complications are perhaps our best educator and can be an important catalyst for improvement. Faculty will present the worst complications of their careers as it relates to common shoulder, elbow, and knee surgeries. We will discuss both the technical errors and subsequent changes made as well as the life lessons learned along the way. This is intended to be a practical, ‘in-the-trenches’ approach to minimize complications, manage bad outcomes and deliberately improve going forward.

Learning Objectives:

• Shoulder instability – it’s just a labral repair, what could go wrong? The importance of the doctor-patient relationship.
• Throwing elbow – lessons learned from technical errors.
• Patellofemoral joint – finding success through failure, the importance of preoperative planning.
• ACL – simple surgeries are not always so simple, developing grit and improving your next 20 ACLs.

Faculty

Matthew A. Tao, MD

Christopher S. Ahmad, MD

Jacqueline Brady, MD

Alison P. Toth, MD