BOA Latest News

BOA Ortho Update Course 2025 - Save the date!

The BOA Ortho Update course will take place on Saturday 1st March 2025 in Birmingham. Following on from a very successful 2024 course, we hope to carry that success over into next year’s course in Birmingham.

We are excited to announce a newly revamped and restructured BOA Ortho Update course that has something for everyone. This includes the difficult critical Case Based Discussions (CBDs) that delegates often struggle to get signed off, such as metastatic spinal cord compression and primary/secondary musculoskeletal malignancies. Improve and polish up your clinical examination skills in both a generic and diagnosisspecific manner. For the first time, we introduce the hugely popular small group teaching that involves a question-and-answer session on various orthopaedic topics, including the young adult hip, ostomies for the young arthritic knee patient and trauma scenarios.

Further information can be found at www.boa.ac.uk/OrthoUpdate.

BOA Committee recruitmentGet involved with the BOA!

Are you passionate about inspiring action and effecting change? Are you keen to be an active advocate and ambassador for an organisation? Are you eager to play a key role in important projects and initiatives? Committees are the engine of the BOA and Committee members are appointed for their passion, dedication, and innovation.

We have exciting opportunities for BOA members who are Home Fellows or SAS surgeons to represent, lead and effect change across the trauma and orthopaedic profession through the BOA Committees.

We are recruiting for posts in the following Committees: Orthopaedic, Trauma, and Medico-legal. Find out more at www.boa.ac.uk/get-involved.

You may apply for vacancies across multiple Committees, however, if you are successful for one, any other application(s) will automatically be removed from consideration.

Deadline for all applications: Monday 30th September

Applications are particularly encouraged from currently underrepresented groups in the BOA leadership structures including, but not limited to, women, BAME and LGBTQ+ members.

Training Orthopaedic Trainers Course (TOTs)

The underlying premise of TOTs is that if T&O trainers understand how people learn and how the T&O curriculum works, by translating that understanding into action, they should be able to improve their teaching.

Much of the work can be done at a time, place and pace convenient to participants, with attendance at live virtual meetings to supplement personal learning. The V-TOTs course will last for approximately six weeks. 2025 course dates can be found on the website at www.boa.ac.uk/TOTs.

BOA Trustee Elections

Reminder that voting is open from 2nd – 30th September for the BOA Trustee election. If eligible to vote, you will have received an email with instructions from Mi Voice. (If you haven’t received it, make sure to check your junk folder). Voting members are Home Fellow, Home Member, Post CCT and SAS Year 11+. This year there are five vacancies to fill so make sure to have your say!

UKITE 2024

This year’s UKITE will run from 6th - 13th December 2024. Registration for the exam is open from 1st September. Registration is free for trainees and SAS surgeons who are BOA members provided that they register by 30th November. Late registrations are subject to a £50 fee. More information and guidance about UKITE can be found at www.boa.ac.uk/UKITE.

Charity launches Major Trauma Awareness Week to highlight long-term and complex impact of injuries on people’s lives

National charity Day One Trauma Support, in partnership with Active Care Group and PBC Biomed, is organising Major Trauma Awareness Week on 16th – 22nd September to share patient stories and encourages professionals to add their voice to the campaign.

The charity, which was founded by trauma and orthopaedic surgeon Professor Peter Giannoudis, says many major trauma patients and their families are being let down due to a lack of holistic support and signposting.

It provides non-clinical services such as emotional, practical and financial support through caseworkers within Major Trauma Centres, a network of Peer Support Volunteers, and its National Support Offer. Last year it helped more than 1,500 people and provided more than £82,000 in grants to cover immediate costs and ongoing recovery.

The charity says many more people don’t get this support, especially after discharge from hospital, leading to inadequate and disjointed rehabilitation and insufficient support for their emotional and psychological health and wellbeing.

BOA members and other health professionals are invited to join in their campaign to highlight the long term and complex impact major trauma has on people’s lives.

To find out more about the charity and how you can get involved in Major Trauma Awareness Week visit www.dayonetrauma.org/mtaw, or follow @dayonetrauma.

SAS fellowship

We are delighted to announce the second year of the SAS Education Fellowship of £3,000 for an SAS or LED member for a project of up to 12 months to support their education or career development. Deadline for applications 21st October 2024. Further information on how to apply, eligibility, and guidance can be found at www.boa.ac.uk/SAS-fellowship.

Travelling fellowships

Every year, the BOA offers a number of travelling fellowships to its members to undertake a fellowship at centres of excellence in the UK or abroad to gain knowledge and experience within trauma and orthopaedic study. Applications are open 2nd September – 21st October 2024. Further information on how to apply, fellowship sponsors and guidance can be found at www. boa.ac.uk/travelling-fellowships.

Mobilisation and weightbearing after orthopaedic surgery / musculoskeletal injury BOAST

The BOA have recently published a new BOA Standard (BOASt) on the mobilisation and weightbearing after orthopaedic surgery / musculoskeletal injury. This BOAST was jointly developed by the BOA and a number of stakeholders. You can read the full article here: www.boa.ac.uk/mobilisation-boast.

A full list of BOASTs can be found at www.boa.ac.uk/BOASTs.

Reminder on the use of images and copyright

Just a reminder that if you are using images in a presentation, to accompany an article, in a screencast recording or any another purpose, you must ensure you have copyright or permission to use the images.

Things to consider when using images:

• Use of an image for any purpose is subject to copyright whether it is a written article or an oral presentation being recorded for re-use.

• Don’t assume that any image found online via an image search is free to re-use.

• Screenshotting or using a snip tool to ‘copy’ an image found online is a likely infringement of copyright.

• If you source an image from a website promoting copyright-free images, you are still responsible for checking the copyright status of the image.

• Check if the image is under a Creative Commons (CC) license. More information on CC license is available at: https://creativecommons.org/ share-your-work/cclicenses/

• Google Images Advanced Search is a useful tool which enables you to filter results by Usage Rights, similar to Creative Commons categories.

AI and Bots are now able to scan websites and recorded material to check for copyright infringements. Therefore, it is especially important you check any images in your work that could be potentially uploaded to the BOA website as the BOA would be liable to cover costs of any copyright infringements.

More information on use of images can be found on the BOA website at www.boa.ac.uk/image-copyright.