CORR ^® International—Asia-Pacific: Making the Transition From Training to Practice: A Guide For Young Surgeons in the Asia-Pacific Region

Excerpt

It is hard to ignore the disparities between the daily practices of orthopaedic surgeons in the Asia-Pacific region and those in the West. Some elements of practice just do not “export” very well; we know that some clinical research findings in European populations do not apply in Asian patients, and vice versa. Differences in culture, as well as varied economic and political systems mean that healthcare research done in the United States may not apply at all in Asia. Certain surgical techniques may be more applicable in Asia than in the West. For Asian patients with TKA, additional surgical steps are more frequently required to address severe coronal or torsional deformity, which left untreated, can result in unbalanced asymmetrical gaps [3‐6]. While “traditional medicine” may be a fad in the West, the “traditions” come from the East, and those traditions run long and deep in some parts of Asia. I frequently encounter patients with joint pain who still seek acupuncture. Modern medicine is a relative novelty in Asia; some patients still prefer what they grew up with. …