AO Trauma hand and wrist education taskforce successfully rolls out new practical exercises
27 February 2019
Ten new practical exercises were run for the first time during the AO Trauma hand and wrist course in Cartagena, Colombia, in September 2018.
The practicals—using the VA Hand System, corresponding teaching videos, and a series of improved Synbone models created especially for the equipment modifications—address today's hand surgery challenges. The new bone models simulate different fracture configurations as well as enhanced soft tissue changes.
Doug Campbell explaining the new practicals Chaired by Luis Felipe Naquira Escobar from Medellin (CO), the course was supported by one international faculty member, Doug Campbell (GB), two regional faculty members, Gerardo Zarate (MX) and Ricardo Kaempf (BR), and five national faculty members. Likely questions and areas of potential confusion during one-on‐one and small group teaching were anticipated in an intense discussion among the faculty during the pre-course where the new teaching videos were reviewed.
Discussions at the pre-course 
Discussions at the pre-course During coffee breaks, the faculty took the opportunity to informally collect participants' feedback on the course and to more accurately understand their various views. Participants performed very well, even on the more technically challenging exercises with the revised bone models (eg, application of the phalangeal head plate that requires a brief demonstration on an overhead camera to assist participants to identify the precise location for the plate). They approved the models as lifelike and anatomically accurate.
At the practical exercises[No text in field] 
At the practical exercises 
At the practical exercises