Updates enhance AO Recon curriculum

Based on valuable feedback from faculty and evaluations from course participants, the AO Recon Education Forum and the AO Recon Hip and Knee Taskforce have approved several updates to enhance educational events.

The updates—detailed below—are available in the AO Recon Faculty Support Package, and the AO team is available to support faculty with the latest program versions and materials.

AO Recon Course—Principles of Total Hip and Knee Arthroplasty

All pre-event data reports now include objective data from a set of 16 multiple choice questions based on clinical scenarios, which help the learners prepare for the course and faculty identify areas to focus on.

Additionally, one of the stations in the AO Recon Skills Lab will be enhanced with the addition of a screw insertion exercise in early 2023; if it proves to be of high value, this will be integrated into the station in the future.

AO Recon Course—Complex Total Hip and Knee Arthroplasty

There are now many options for delivery of this course including dry and wet lab, 2 and 2.5 days, 24 or 36 participants, hip alone, knee alone with additional modules. Selection of the program is decided during the annual event planning process. Faculty and support teams are asked to align regarding the regional and local needs for the specific program chosen.

Some program updates were made in mid-2022 and faculty should integrate these in the planned programs if possible and use the new template for future planning. The changes enhance the flow of the presentations, add some details to the labs, and will result in an updated library of cases for the small group discussions. 

Additionally, feedback from many events shows that the optimal way to run plenary case presentations is to keep the focus on one or two cases and to minimize the knowledge slides integrated. The moderator of these sessions plays a key role in helping the faculty to prepare and to deliver the content and is responsible for engaging learners to ask questions and interacting with the presenter as much as possible.

At the same time, new teaching videos for the knee for running the wet and dry labs will be available so the master demonstration table will not be needed.

Guidelines for retaining the AO competency-based curriculum stamp are now defined: 5 percent of the presentations and plenary cases can be changed if the international chairperson agrees. The overall program must include the standard cases for the small group discussions and the full hip and knee lab components, and follow the recommended time allocations.

These enhancements are all based on feedback from faculty and on reviewing the evaluation data from participants. AO Recon faculty have been instrumental in getting on-site courses back up and running. These efforts are reflected in the excellent evaluation ratings from events delivered in the first half of 2022.

Feedback on the latest curriculum update can be sent to barbara.niederee@aofoundation.org or michael.cunningham@aofoundation.org.