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SurgSpace / Specialties / Orthopedic Surgery

Orthopedic Surgery

Bones, joints and the injured limb: fracture fixation from plates to nails, the hip fracture pathway that defines care of the older patient, arthroplasty that trades a worn joint for a working one, and the emergencies, open fractures, compartments, septic joints, where limbs are saved or lost.

4 operations in depth5 interactive cases

Backdrop: Anteroposterior X-ray of a total hip arthroplasty · Mikael Häggström, M.D · CC0

Read the scan

Imaging

See the study, interpret it, then answer the surgical question.

The studies that shape surgical decision-making. Not a radiology curriculum: what the scan changes about the plan, then practice reading it.

Practice the image

Classify the hip fracture

An 84-year-old found on the floor: a shortened, externally rotated leg. AP radiograph of the hip. (Fictional educational case.)

Synthetic educational image · schematic hip fracture for classification practice

Find the fracture, classify it against the capsule, and choose the operative strategy: the whole hip-fracture algorithm practised on one drawing.

X-ray
Radiograph of the wrist showing a fracture of the distal radius
X-ray · Colles-type fracture of the distal radius
X-ray
Anteroposterior radiograph of a knee after total knee arthroplasty, with femoral and tibial components in place
X-ray · post-operative anteroposterior view of a well-seated total knee prosthesis

What each study decides

Investigations

  • Plain radiographs

    • Two views, two ends, and the joints above and below: the discipline that stops the second fracture being found in clinic next week.
    • Describe systematically: which bone, where, what pattern, displaced how, joint involved or not, and the film speaks the referral for you.
    Want to interpret the full study? Open in RadSpace

  • CT & MRI

    • CT maps comminution and articular surfaces for the fixation plan; it is the fracture surgeon's blueprint.
    • MRI sees what films cannot: occult fractures (the painful hip with normal films), infection's marrow signal, and the soft-tissue picture around joints.
    Want to interpret the full study? Open in RadSpace

  • Joint aspiration

    • The hot joint's decisive test: Gram stain, culture, crystals and cell count from one needle, taken before antibiotics.
    • In prosthetic joints it is the diagnostic centrepiece, done under strict asepsis and often in radiology or theatre rather than the bedside.

  • Inflammatory markers & cultures

    • CRP's trend outperforms its value: rising after day two post-fixation, or in any painful arthroplasty, it reopens the infection question.
    • Blood cultures before antibiotics in every febrile bone and joint patient: the organism's name is worth more than a day of empirical breadth.

Hub shaped by the Surgical Specialties Lead with the Orthopaedic surgery reviewer (open seat). Images and videos carry their source; educational use for supervised learning, not clinical guidance.