A public health background is extraordinarily useful for orthopedic surgery. A lot ortho surgeons are proactive in educating their communities about musculoskeletal injuries/pathologies (many of which are preventable). For example, I want to get involved in preventing ACL injuries in female athletes. Women are more prone to suffer from ACL tears for various reasons: 1) They are more likely to be at an anatomical disadvantage; a valgus knee anatomy is more prevalent in females and this puts the ACL at a greater risk for rupture. 2) They usually have stronger quads than males. As a result, they have tendency to land with their knees straight, which puts the ACL in a more vulnerable position. (It's safer to land with your knees bent when jumping). 3) There might also be a hormonal factor. It appears that the production of the hormone relaxin (which occurs during menstruation?), causes ligament laxity. By recognizing these risks, you can educate female athletes, parents, coaches etc about prevention methods. Even with these biomechanical and anatomical disadvantages, a person can learn how to land properly when they jump, pivot correctly when appropriate, and develop better muscle balance (i.e. by strengthening the hamstrings). Some are even experimenting with recombinant relaxin+estrogen. So yeah, as an ortho surgeon you can head down to your local school, sports league, etc and educate ppl about this stuff! You can also work to influence policy by incorporating ACL prevention classes in PE. I would even go as far as requiring coaches to obtain a certification! Obviously, a public health background can be very useful for implementing such policy!
There's also the clinical epidemiology approach, which involves gathering clinical data to determine optimal treatment plans for current and future patients. A lot of ortho academic centers collaborate on these projects (i.e. treatment for rotator cuff disease in older adults, the efficacy of hip resurfacing vs total hip replacement etc). I believe that this is more of an MS (in clinical epidemiology) pathway, but there seems to be some overlap. I realize this is long
Obviously, I love ortho!
Anyway, I feel that UNC is ideal for all of this because it puts a huge emphasis on public health! I just used those other places as examples. And it was more about their ortho departments (not their med schools). Rush and Mayo have actually advertised these research positions on SDN and Orthogate for med students in general (not just from their respective schools). In conclusion
, your strengths (academic aptitude, altruism, work ethic, and commitment to improving outcomes) make you ideal for ortho
