Leg, Ankle and Foot Surgery

Medical specialties have become increasingly complex due to advances in science, technology, and research. As a result, within a specialty like Orthopedics and Traumatology, various subspecialties have emerged to meet the need for a broader understanding of each discipline and to better serve patient health. For over five decades in our country, and even longer in other countries, the Society of Leg, Ankle, and Foot Pathology has existed as a subspecialty within Orthopedics and Traumatology. This has led to the current recognition of the Leg, Ankle, and Foot specialty both nationally and internationally, with specific courses, congresses, conferences, and other events, both national and international. Furthermore, there are numerous publications in prestigious international journals specializing in this field.   The subspecialty of Leg, Ankle, and Foot, recognized as such by the Argentine Association of Orthopedics and Traumatology, has made significant progress in the last two decades in the prevention and diagnosis of pathologies—some well-known and others discovered during that period—as well as in their treatment, whether conservative or surgical. Likewise, knowledge has grown regarding the methods, types, and durations of patient rehabilitation. Reconstructive and function-preserving surgeries, joint-conserving techniques, minimally invasive techniques, and the advancement of endoscopic and arthroscopic surgery in the region have led to great innovation and evolution in this subspecialty within Orthopedics and Traumatology. Numerous studies have demonstrated that obtaining good results has a direct relationship with the training level of the members of the surgical team (lead surgeon, assistant surgeons) and with the infrastructure and level of institutional complexity (high complexity and stable, interdisciplinary medical and support teams). Whatever the organizational model for centralizing surgical teams and institutions, they have sought to standardization of results with optimization of results (definition and compliance with standards)In turn, within the field of health economics, a fundamental objective is to establish strategies for Resource Optimization and cost reduction:

1. rational selection of patients and implants
2. Correct therapeutic indications
3. reduction of the very high costs arising from the care of surgical failures, complications, sequelae and infections.
4. medico-legal prevention.

  The aim of the training and education program in pathology and surgery of the leg, ankle, and foot is to provide academic training in this specialty to physicians who have completed their residency in general orthopedics and traumatology. This educational process will take place at the Austral University Hospital. Universidad AustralThis training, supplemented by instruction from other institutions, will be provided through a specific program with appropriate regulations, guidelines, modalities, and conditions that enable students to acquire the necessary skills in the subject matter for their subsequent professional practice. The objective, therefore, is to equip students with knowledge, manual and surgical skills, and to enhance their scientific, academic, and clinical development.