Orthopaedic Trauma Society Hertiage.

A rich history, the OTS was Founded in 2011. Below are some recollections from the origins of the OTS from Mr. Nigel Rossiter – the Founding President.

I went to my first OTA meeting in Louisville in 1996. It was a considerably smaller meeting then than now with about 300 attendees and a critique of every paper was performed by the panel after each was delivered. I was very impressed by the format and content, far better than anything in the UK at that time, and attended every meeting since until recently.

By 2003 many of us who regularly went to this meeting from the UK, no more than 6 of us then, were getting increasingly frustrated by the lack of good quality Orthopaedic Trauma research that impacted patients and practice being performed globally and not least in the UK. In 2003 Keith Willett, Ian Pallister, Tim Chesser and I were chuntering over a beer in a bar in Boston USA when Rick Buckley joined us and we decided to follow the example of COTS (the Canadian Orthopaedic Trauma Society) which had recently successfully been formed and delivered the first national good quality Orthopaedic Trauma RCTs.

We formed TORC – the Trauma Orthopaedic Research Collaborative and brought in Prof Sallie Lamb to guide us. Over the next few years, we began to formulate good-quality UK Orthopaedic Trauma studies. Our group gradually increased in number and in 2011 many of us sat during a break in the Minneapolis OTA meeting and decided to form the OTS. Many name suggestions were initially bandied about before OTS was decided (BOTS being vetoed……..).

I made the giant mistake of going to chair a session at the OTA meeting, and on my return at an AO reception I was given the news by Mike Kelly that I had been voted the Founding President in my absence – lesson learned. We held our first meeting of OTS at RCSEng in 2012 and I remained President until 2015 when we correctly decided that the Presidential line should be a progression: 1 year as President-elect, 1 as President and 1 as Immediate Past President.

We have gone from strength to strength and probably the proudest part of my career has been the success of the organisation – we have effectively gone from being a global bystander to the leading nation globally delivering quality patient-driven and centred Orthopaedic Trauma research that influences practice care and outcomes positively. This is reflected by NIHR grants: in 2002 no project in Orthopaedics or Trauma had ever been funded by the NIHR, it was dominated by medical specialities. Orthopaedic Trauma is now the leading NIHR-funded research speciality.