Plenary Speakers
We are pleased to announce that internationally acclaimed experts Lewis Zirkle, Mahmoud Hafez and Randall Loder will be the plenary speakers at the SICOT Congress in Muscat.
Lewis ZirkleDr Lewis Zirkle graduated from Davidson College in 1962 and Duke University Medical Center in 1966, where he also completed his surgical internship. After one year of orthopaedic residency at Duke University Medical Center, he was drafted by the US Army and sent to Vietnam. Dr Zirkle was given permission to treat Vietnamese civilians in one wing of the hospital, in addition to treating the US military. Serving patients who had no choice in their medical treatment was very rewarding and this service later led Dr Zirkle to volunteer with Orthopedics Overseas and other organisations. He finished his orthopaedic training in the US Army in 1972. Dr Zirkle’s experience in Vietnam and his volunteer work overseas led him to the realisation that the donation of appropriate implants must be combined with education. This inspired the formation of SIGN Fracture Care International in 1999. Many people in the USA and developing countries have contributed to the journey of SIGN. Implants and instruments are designed and manufactured in SIGN’s headquarters in Richland, Washington and donated to hospitals around the world. Dr Zirkle retired from private practice in 2008 to devote himself full time to SIGN. SIGN is now used in over 300 hospitals and 50 developing countries. SIGN surgeons have performed 232,000 SIGN surgeries for poor patients in developing countries. Dr Zirkle has the utmost respect for the surgeons who perform SIGN surgery in developing countries, as well as all those who assist SIGN with implementing the vision of creating equality of fracture care throughout the world.
Mahmoud HafezProfessor Mahmoud Hafez is a pioneer in developing patient-specific instrument (PSI) technology for total knee replacement (TKR) and is Professor and Head of the Orthopaedic Department at October 6 University, Egypt. Training and working in the UK for more than ten years, Professor Hafez got his FRCS(Ed) and postgraduate MD degree from Leeds University. He has completed subspecialty fellowships in hip and knee arthroplasty at Wrightington Hospital, Wigan, United Kingdom; Western Penn Hospital, Pittsburgh, USA; and St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto University, Canada. After 17 years working abroad, he went back to Egypt with the mission to exploit his skills and experiences in research, education and clinical care and to share computer-assisted orthopaedic surgery (CAOS) technology in his native country. His CAOS experience began 1998 at the University of Hull, working to develop a robot for TKR. His MD research project in Leeds resulted in the development of a novel PSI technique for TKR. During his work in Pittsburgh, he tested the reliability of PSI and gained more experience in navigation and robotics. In Egypt, he has established a research and development lab to advance PSI technology leading to the filing of 18 patents. His patent ‘Open-platform and hospital-based PSI’ has made the technique simple, inexpensive and suited for complex cases in developing countries. He now uses PSI routinely for complex and bilateral TKR in a cost-effective manner. Inspired by the US ‘Operation Walk’ he reproduced a similar model, performing 43 TKRs for needy patients (with implants from the charity MEK) during the uprising in Egypt, when there was no government funding for TKR.
Randall LoderDr Randall Loder visits us from the Indiana University School of Medicine and James Whitcomb Riley Hospital for Children, where he is the George J. Garceau Professor of Pediatric Orthopedic Surgery and Professor at Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr Loder is acknowledged as one of the top experts in the world on slipped capital femoral epiphysis and paediatric hip conditions in general. He will be speaking on the role that paediatric hip pathology plays in adult hip degeneration and total hip arthroplasty. Dr Loder received his MD from Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri in 1980, then undertook his Orthopedic Residency at the Medical College of Ohio, Toledo followed by his fellowship in Pediatric Orthopaedics at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. He has been a Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine (where he has also served as Chairman) since 2003.
