International Networking of Sports Orthopaedic Clinics

Fortius Clinic

7 years old. ‘Number 1’ for UK orthopaedic and sports medicine. 2 outpatient clinics (soon to be 3), each with Xray, ultrasound, and MRI, and a Surgery Centre. 50 surgeons and another 30 doctors- radiologists / sports physicians. We care for many of the UK’s athletes- personally: 52 football teams including 16 of 20 English Premiership teams, and 9 or 12 English Rugby Premiership plus several Welsh teams. My colleagues include leaders in their fields. FIFA awarded us ‘F-MARC’ as a ‘medical centre of excellence’ in 2015. We have strong research commitments and links with Imperial College, London.

Why have a sports orthopaedic clinic?

• Treating athletes is good:
• Learning – makes doctors better.
• A challenging environment which improves everyone.
• Good for clinic profile and a proof of excellence.
• Non-athletes get better care.

Why network?

• ‘Stronger together’- politics, making policies for wellbeing in sports.
• Data is power and bigger data is bigger power! eg collaborative outcomes data .
• Learn from each other:
  • successes and problems;
  • different experiences / issues in different parts of the World.
• Research –improves the care of patients- collaboration.

How to Network?

• Start: meet and ‘talk’ – become friends!
• Share experiences e.g. lateral meniscectomy problematic in football.
• Fellowships- Fortius annual fellows’ exchange week with the Dutch Arthroscopy Association; Fortius Clinical and Research Fellows
• Collaboration: audit / research projects- pool data.
• Education eg joint conferences, invitations to join faculty, a ‘team’ at big conferences.
• Produce consensus statements.
• Publish together.

xamples of collaborations in sports medicine: some good - some poor

• Collective societies eg ACL Study Group, Herodicus Society
• Committees of societies eg ESSKA sports committee
• FIFA medical network: online ideas’ exchange
• F-MARC centres of excellence- meet annually.
• English rugby and UEFA injury data.

Problems

• Is it really ‘sports’ or just arthroscopic /soft tissue conditions?
• ‘Sleeping partners’: often members like being in the ‘club’ but don't contribute.
• Too many conferences / organisations involved = less quality
• Very few of the great clinics continue at the same level when the founders retire- replacing leaders is difficult.
• Low quality science is difficult to avoid in sports medicine.

Keys to success

• Not too big a network.
• Members committed, contribute, and must believe in ‘mission’
• Choose achievable projects for collaboration.

- 講演の様子