Pan Am Clinic Foundation Research Group Becomes First to Win Three Prestigious Awards in Same Year
WINNIPEG, CANADA, JUNE 24th, 2020: The Pan Am Clinic Foundation has quietly established itself as one of the top orthopedic surgical and research centres in North America, pulling in three top research awards in a period of twelve months, namely:
– The Richard O’Connor Award, Arthroscopy Association of North America (lead)
– The Neer Award, American Shoulder & Elbow Surgeons (lead)
– O’Donoghue Award, American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine (collaborator)
“Pan Am’s orthopedic research program has become a leader in the field and these awards are proof of just how innovative our work is, as these are three of the most prestigious awards in sports medicine and shoulder research anywhere in the world,” said Dr. Peter MacDonald, a renowned orthopedic surgeon and the Pan Am Clinic Foundation’s Chief Research & Innovation Officer. “No other organization has ever held all these three awards at the same time so this is something the entire medical community here in Manitoba should feel very proud of.”
The Richard O’Connor and Neer Awards were in recognition of a study that has garnered much attention from the orthopedic community, also winning the top research award from the Canadian Shoulder & Elbow Surgeons. The study compared two different surgical approaches for treating repeated shoulder dislocations, with one approach reducing the risk of re-dislocation by four times. The Pan Am Clinic Foundation has won the Canadian Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons Society research award two years in a row, with the award being given the previous year for a study comparing two surgeries to treat pain caused by the biceps muscle.
The Neer award, named after the late Dr Charles Neer, who was the pioneer of modern shoulder surgery, “is the equivalent of the Stanley Cup in shoulder surgery research,” said Dr. Jarret Woodmass, Director of Quality Assurance & Outcomes for the Foundation.
“Our research and our clinical work revolve around quality of life’” said MacDonald. “Shoulder injuries are actually one of the most common musculoskeletal injuries, and can often become chronic and debilitating conditions. That’s why studies like these are so important, because they can lead to real innovations in patient care that impact a person’s entire life in a positive way.”
In addition to the awards themselves, the paper outlining the study (Arthroscopic Bankart Repair with and without Arthroscopic Infraspinatus Remplissage in Anterior Should Instability with a Hill-Sachs Defect: Randomized Controlled Trial) will be published in a peer-reviewed journal in the coming months.
The O’Donoghue Award, from the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, was won by the Pan Am Clinic Research Group as a collaborator with researchers from the lead site, the Fowler Kennedy Sports Medicine Centre in London, Ontario. That award was for a study that focused on ACL reconstruction in the knee, and identified a new procedure that reduced re-rupture in young patients at high risk for reinjury by two thirds at two years post-surgery.
“At its core, medicine is about helping people and constantly learning how you can help people better,” said MacDonald. “Pan Am’s research group is second to none in this regard and these awards are proof of just how dedicated they are to finding the most effective ways to help the patients we serve.”
The World Health Organization has identified musculoskeletal conditions as the number one contributor to disability worldwide, and result in chronic pain or disability for one in eight Canadians. The Pan Am Clinic Foundation supports innovations in musculoskeletal research and patient care to offer our patients the very best outcomes and quality of life.