Symposium - Orthopaedic Workforce in the Next Millennium

This is a landmark event. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons has been invited by the American Orthopaedic Association to put together a symposium of interest to orthopaedic surgeons. In light of what has happened in the marketplace over the last couple of years, the orthopaedic workforce became our obvious choice. I think that my predecessors in this office have probably heard more concern raised by the fellowship of the Academy with regard to workforce than about any other single issue that we have faced during the last decade. While some of these concerns are perhaps more perceived than real, they certainly are vocalized very loudly. The Academy leadership feels frustrated because of our inability to do very much to address the situation directly. We cannot mandate or direct that the number of residency positions be cut or that a number of our fellows retire or anything else to affect the situation very quickly. The one thing that we found that we could do was to obtain useful information and then provide a forum for discussion about that information, so three years ago the RAND Corporation entered into a contract with the Academy and then was funded by the Academy, the American Orthopaedic Association, and several of the specialty societies to conduct a study on the orthopaedic workforce. The purpose of the study was to tell us where we stand and, hopefully, to give us some clear indication about orthopaedic workforce numbers in the future. The study was published in the March issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery^, and it will be the foundation of the discussion presented by Paul Lee. The study has raised some concerns and criticisms by several different people, probably best articulated by Jim Weinstein in his commentary that was published in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, right behind the article by Paul Lee. Jim is going to present to you a different perspective on workforce issues. The next part of this symposium is to boldly predict where we are going to be in 2010,2020, and 2030.1 could find nobody better to do that than John Callaghan. John is one of the younger members of the American Orthopaedic Association and certainly very knowledgeable about the workforce issues. That part of the symposium will give us some information about where we are and where we think we are going to be. Then, we will give Mark Gebhardt and Mike Simon, who have had substantial experience on the Residency Review Committee, the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery, Incorporated, and the Academic Orthopaedic Society, the opportunity to come forward and give us their personal opinions and impressions of where these organizations stand on the workforce issues. In addition, I have asked Bob D'Ambrosia to talk a bit about how he thinks the marketplace is going to affect the workforce issues. Finally, we will have an open-floor discussion of these issues.