Project Director Bill Green

Following publication of Fractures and Dislocations: A Manual of Orthopaedic Trauma, produced at the Hospital for Joint Diseases by Mr. Green, the decision was made to repurpose and expand the book’s contents by producing of a series of multimedia programs.

The advantages of teaching many subjects using interactive multimedia include the ability to demonstrate concepts and techniques with animation and video in addition to the traditional modes of text and still pictures. Hyperlinks—“buttons,” including text and pictures, that activate some feature, including transition to related material or trigger audiovisual components—allow the learner to find information efficiently and to gain an appreciation of concepts and interrelationships reinforced by embedded visual cues.

User interactivity In Acute Management of Pelvic Ring Fractures (presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons), the computer user can choose to view the demonstration video from start to finish or one or more sequences in any desired order.

Multimedia programs developed so far by Mr. Green include treatment of fractures to the pelvic ring, femoral head, femoral neck, intertrochanteric region, and proximal humerus. The newest title in this series, Treatment of Distal Humerus Fractures, was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

Virtual reality A series of cross sections (top left) is “skinned” to produce three- dimensional representations of skeletal structures, which the user can rotate to view from any angle. The proximal femur (top right) is used in Treatment of Femoral Neck Fractures, and the pelvis (lower) in Acute Management of Pelvic Ring Fractures, both presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.