Marc Swiontkowski, MD, FIOTA
The OTA is partnering with JBJS OrthoCorps to record the oral histories of the orthopaedic trauma community. OrthoCorps is an online audio archive that aims to preserve and share the stories of the orthopaedic community in the form of brief interviews between colleagues or first-person narratives.
We are attempting to record as many interviews from OTA members as possible. This program is not just for the committee members, board members, or “big names”—this opportunity is for everyone. Potential topics include recollections of key events in your career; memories of a mentor, senior partner, associate, or former resident or fellow; or a description of how the OTA has shaped careers, recalling key events, patients, or research findings. Essentially, anything that may be of interest to the OTA membership. Interviews will be made available on the OTA website and the OrthoCorps website. Contributors are also encouraged to post links to their interviews on their group or department’s website.
The instructions for recording interviews may be found here and can be done outside of an OTA meeting. We attempted to send out an email blast with a sign-up sheet this year but did not receive the participation we had hoped for. We were, however, able to capture a few interviews on the fly, which will be made available in the coming weeks.
At the next annual meeting in Phoenix, we again plan to offer opportunities for recording interviews. But you don’t have to wait—submit an interview and begin building the catalogue of oral histories for your trauma group today.
This is a great way to recognize key individuals and events in your career and in the wider orthopaedic trauma community. If you have any questions, please contact Meg Clark (meclark@jbjs.org) from the JBJS OrthoCorps team.