Patient-centred medicine is an approach to medical care that emphasises the patient experience. Treatment outcome measures reflect this experience, and outcomes are measured by obtaining patient feedback. Central to this type of care is the patient-physician relationship. Communication, physician empathy, and shared decision making are key components of this relationship. Patient-centred care is correlated with better patient outcomes across medical specialties and higher patient perceived quality of care. Payors are now using patient-centred quality measures in their physician reimbursement schedules

By and large, physicians and surgeons trust what they read, even if they take authors’ conclusions with a pinch of salt. There is a world of difference between being cautious about the implications of what you read and being defrauded by dishonest researchers. Fraud and scientific research are incompatible bedfellows and yet are an unhappy part of our research existence. All subspecialties are to blame and orthopaedics is no exception

Ancient Egypt was a highly developed agrarian society with a massive civil engineering capability. Trauma and skeletal disease were common and vestiges of the evidence for that survive, largely in the form of hieratic images and papyri dedicated to the practice of medicine. The earliest treatise on trauma is the Edwin Smith papyrus, possibly the work of Imhotep. This study details some remarkable examples of musculoskeletal pathology including fatal open fractures, foot deformity of Tutankhamun, and the earliest recorded instances of child abuse.

A comprehensive study of osteology remains a cornerstone of current orthopaedic and traumatological education. Osteology was already established as an important part of surgical education by the 16^th century. In order to teach anatomy and osteology, the corpses of executed criminals were dissected by the praelector anatomiae of the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons. Magnificent anatomical atlases preserve the knowledge obtained from these dissections. We present an overview of the most authoritative works of Vesalius, Bidloo, Cheselden, and Albinus authored in the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th centuries. At that time a knowledge of osteology was necessary to pass the ‘master-exam’ in order to become a surgeon, and anatomical teaching was traditionally based on the practice of dissection. In the modern era, anatomical dissection and illustrations are largely being replaced by three-dimensional imaging and computer simulations, with an unfortunate trend in current curricula away from the established teaching technique of dissection. Education through the practice of dissection, particularly for future surgeons, remains integral to the development of tissue handling techniques, understanding of anatomical variation, and furthering of spatial awareness skills. With this review, we seek to remind contemporary surgeons of the lessons we can learn from our predecessors who valued education through anatomical dissection.

The “Universal Protocol” (UP) was launched as a regulatory compliance standard by the Joint Commission on 1st July 1 2004, with the primary intent of reducing the occurrence of wrong-site and wrong-patient surgery. As we’re heading into the tenth year of the UP implementation in the United States, it is time for critical assessment of the protocol’s impact on patient safety related to the incidence of preventable never-events. This article opens the debate on the potential shortcomings and pitfalls of the UP, and provides recommendations on how to circumvent specific inherent vulnerabilities of this widely established patient safety protocol.

There are significant differences in the methods and styles of orthopaedic surgical training between continents, all with the aim to produce competent consultant surgeons, but the differences in training content and pathway are vast. We review and contrast the key differences between three continents.

We live in troubled times. Increased opposition reliance on explosive devices, the widespread use of individual and vehicular body armour, and the improved survival of combat casualties have created many complex musculoskeletal injuries in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Explosive mechanisms of injury account for 75% of all musculoskeletal combat casualties. Throughout all the echelons of care medical staff practice consistent treatment strategies of damage control orthopaedics including tourniquets, antibiotics, external fixation, selective amputations and vacuum-assisted closure. Complications, particularly infection and heterotopic ossification, remain frequent, and re-operations are common. Meanwhile, non-combat musculoskeletal casualties are three times more frequent than those derived from combat and account for nearly 50% of all musculoskeletal casualties requiring evacuation from the combat zone.