JBJS is pleased to welcome George SM Dyer, MD, as Deputy Editor of the AOA Critical Issues in Education channel of JBJS Open Access. Dedicated to content of educational importance to medical students, residents, fellows, and faculty, AOA Critical Issues in Education was launched in 2020 through a partnership of the American Orthopaedic Association (AOA) and JBJS. Dr. Dyer is an orthopaedic surgeon in Boston, Massachusetts.
What are you looking forward to in your role as Deputy Editor?
I’m looking forward to the chance to encourage authors who are writing on educational topics.
How did you become interested in orthopaedics and orthopaedic research?
I’ve had great mentors who’ve shown me the genuine joy of writing, and sharing what I know with a broader audience.
Is there a particular moment or highlight of your career that stands out as most gratifying to you?
Aside from clinical orthopaedics and surgical education, my third passion has been international orthopaedic work in low-income countries. I’ve been most gratified when my work fulfills several of these goals at once, for example, when I’ve been able to contribute to surgical education overseas, or to adapt a new technique for use in a low-resource country.
In your opinion, what is the most important issue or challenge facing the orthopaedic community at this time?
We desperately need to figure out how to best educate and train the next generation of orthopaedic surgeons. Training surgeons is time-consuming, and novice surgeons do a slower job than experts. All our economic incentives are focused on the short term, and they reward quality and efficiency of surgical output. To succeed, therefore, only the most skillful and quickest surgeons should be operating. Yet, if surgeons-in-training are never given the time and opportunity to practice, then when today’s experts retire, there will be no one to replace them.
What advice do you have for prospective authors?
I am looking forward to reading your manuscripts!
Aside from orthopaedic manuscripts, what have you been reading/listening to/watching lately?
I’m a deep and indiscriminate reader. In the last few months, for no particular reason, I’ve been reading both fictionalized and true accounts of heroic flying: Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead and Heart of the Storm by Col. Edward Fleming.
