Fixing fractures – basic internal and external fixator training

Key Information

CPD Hours: 12 hours (4 hours for the recorded webinars and 8 hours for the practical day)

Course Length: See above

Course Format: Practical sessions using cadaver material and plastic bones plus four hours of recorded webinars to be viewed before the onsite course

Course Programme

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£1,049.00

Please email cpd@rvc.ac.uk to register your interest

This course may run again in the future. To register your interest please contact us.

Alternatively you can download and email using our Registration Form

Brilliant course and feel a little less scared/worried about fracture repairs in practice! Thank you.

Course Information

Key Areas
  • Instrumentation and types of plates
  • Understanding the principles of internal fixation
  • Preoperative planning
  • Management of the most common complications
  • Types of External fixators and principles of their application
  • Practical experience repairing a range of fractures using plates and screws and external fixators
About this course

This course is scheduled to run on Wednesday 12th March 2025, please email cpd@rvc.ac.uk to register your interest.

Do you want to enhance your clinical practice by tackling some of the more straightforward fractures, but are not confident about how to proceed? This highly practical hands-on course will give you the confidence to take that next step.

This course of recorded webinars will be followed by an all-day practical giving you the opportunity to practise surgical techniques on synbones and cadavers. The webinars will cover the theory, and provide the necessary background for disease diagnosis and technical aspects required for the practical day. The onsite practical part of the course will give you the opportunity to put the theory into practice and develop your surgical skills in both internal fixation using plates and screws and external fixation techniques. The course will focus on the most commonly used plates and the use of lag screws, and the application of different types of linear external skeletal fixators.

This course consists of recorded webinars and a day of practical sessions. The recorded lectures allow you to learn at your own pace and they can be listened to at a convenient time - these are a prerequisite for attending the practical component.

Why do this course?
The course would be of interest to any recent graduate looking to develop their confidence in basic fracture repair, as well as veterinarians wishing to refresh their knowledge and understanding of the principles of this fixation technique.

Lecture programme (recorded webinars):

  • Introduction to fracture healing 
  • Introduction to internal fixation 
  • Implants and biomechanics of internal fixation 
  • Introduction to external fixation
  • Implants and biomechanics of external fixation 
  • Fracture planning
  • Complications of fracture repair

Practical programme:

Internal fixation AM

  1. Placing a positional and lag screw dry lab
  2. Application of a plate and screws in compression dry lab
  3. Humeral condylar model fracture repair
  4. Cadaveric radius and ulna fracture repair with compression plate wet lab
  5. Cadaveric femoral oblique fracture repair with lag screw wet lab

External fixation PM

  1. How to placed an external fixator dry lab
  2. How to augment the biomechanics of the fixator dry lab
  3. Comminuted tibial fracture repair with external fixator
  4. Comminuted humeral fracture repair with external fixator and intramedullary pin

Tutors

Anna Frykfors von Hekkel, BVetMed(Hons) PGDipVCP MVetMed PGCertVetEd DipECVS FHEA MRCVS
Lecturer in Small Animal Surgery
The Royal Veterinary College

Richard Meeson, MA VetMB PhD MVetMed DipECVS PGCertVetEd FHEA FRCVS
Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Head of Orthopaedics
The Royal Veterinary College

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