Professor, Small Animal Orthopedics and Sports Medicine WSU-WestVet Collaborative Residency Program Pullman, Washington
As a surgeon it is not a rare event for us to be confronted with intraoperative complications when dealing with either simple or complex procedures. All of these complications have the same baseline challenges for us to deal with that special “whisky tango foxtrot” moment. It requires us to stop, think, improvise, adapt, and ultimately overcome the issue. The adage that “A good surgeon always has a plan A, B, and C before going into surgery…” is true but there also needs to be an adaptive, on the spot ability for the surgeon to develop a plan D and sometimes beyond. In the end, these special moments in the OR can be a great opportunity for gaining a wealth of knowledge and for self-reflection of one’s surgical technique; especially the “what if I had done that this way or revised it that way…,etc.”. Several orthopedic complication cases will be shared with the audience combined for audience feedback to aid us all in gaining knowledge to deal with similar complications in the future.
