Collaboration is the Key

Cy Frank, M.D., FRCSC
President, Canadian Orthopaedic Association 

I am deeply honoured to have been selected as the President of our Association this year and will do everything I can to be worthy of this important office. I plan to try to make the COA relevant to our entire membership and to attract you all to the Annual Meeting next June in Edmonton.  I am happy to report that Drs. John Cinats and Robert Korbyl are already working hard with our Program Committee to make it the best meeting ever for both those with and without subspecialty interests. There will once again be a variety of interesting and highly relevant workshops, symposia, tips and tricks, scientific sessions and instructional courses that will literally provide something for everyone. I am going to appeal to all of our community members and the young surgeons who are reading this, in particular, to be engaged and to plan to attend the meeting. Please block off the time now! 

I also realize that we must continue providing meaningful value to each of you over the course of the year through the COA Bulletin, our web site and other communications where we hope to provide useful educational materials to you from many sources, including some of the excellent local instructional courses held by our members. We hope to make as much practical information as possible accessible to members without you having to travel to get it.     

As you will see from my President Elect address that follows this article, I also plan to promote even more networking and collaboration in everything that we do this year within each of our subspecialty societies and our affiliated provincial associations. I think we can avoid a lot of unnecessary duplication of efforts by sharing 'best practices' with each other in clinical care, research, education and administration. We can learn from each other in developing new models of care, building and supporting registries and supporting trials to evaluate what works and what doesn't work in the real world. In short, I've got big plans for the year. Thank you all, in advance, for your support and your participation.