Landmarks in Orthopedics: A 20-Year Perspective (Medscape)
Editor's Note
To commemorate Medscape's 20th anniversary, we asked Ira H. Kirschenbaum, MD, chairman of the Department of Orthopaedics at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, Bronx, New York, who is also board chairman of Medscape Orthopedics, to sketch in some of the landmark developments in orthopedics over the past 20 years. Here is the big picture, in Dr Kirschenbaum's perspective.
A Look Back Over Two Decades
Probably the greatest advance in orthopedics in the past two decades has been the way we look at the success or failure of treatment interventions. There has been a shift in focus on what the surgeon views as a success vs what the patient views a success.
In 1995, we thought we knew that when a patient reached certain postsurgical parameters, it was called a success. We have since realized that the patient's view of satisfaction is more important. In 2015, we talk about "patient-reported outcomes" rather than specific surgical scoring systems. That has been a radical shift.
We have also seen a shift in the focus from looking only at long-term clinical results of surgery to looking at more immediate results. In 2015, we ...
