• Congratulations to Brett Rocos, MD! He received the 2024 Luiz Vialle AO Spine Knowledge Forum Award.
   
• The Duke Hybrid Ortho PT Program is a unique program that combines the health system and our department in a training program, part online and part in person.  This model could be extended more broadly, and I am proud of this pioneering program.

• The holidays are approaching – many things can be considered during this time, including building community,  which was also identified from the department’s Culture Pulse survey results.
   
• Many studies show the importance of community to overall well-being, and some of these conclusions were shared. These offer optimal sizes for a community for different purposes, and our department and divisions are ideal sizes for various facets of a community.

This week marks Perioperative Nurses Week, an annual celebration of the nurses who help our patients through operations and their commitment to safe patient care. 

The date, November 11, 1918, marked the end of the First World War (within the 11th hour of the day of the 11th month). The day was initially celebrated as  Armistice Day and became Veterans Day in the 1950s when it was expanded to honor veterans of all wars. We continue to celebrate Veterans Day every November 11, paying tribute to the selfless service of the men and women of our armed forces.

• Anna Miller, MD, gave a grand rounds presentation about birds and the natural world - and its relationship to what we encounter as physicians in multiple aspects of our lives. In a related occurrence, the American Ornithological Society (AOS) recently announced that English birds would be renamed to remove negative conniptions around some of the names. Dr. Miller and I discussed using analogies from this to reconsider the terminology we use for things in orthopaedics.

Please join me in congratulating our colleague Steven Z. George, PT, PhD, FAPTA, on his appointment as editor-in-chief of the American Physical Therapy Association’s (APTA) flagship publication, the Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Journal (PTJ).

• Reminder: Keep an open mind when dealing with conflicts. Considering each side and coming together will make us stronger as we work together on our future.
   
• A DHIP faculty meeting will be held this afternoon (10/23) to discuss possible compensation model changes.
   
• Welcome new faculty member Kathryn O’Connor to our foot and ankle division. She will be located at NCOC and looks forward to working with trainees.

October is National Physical Therapy Month – a time to celebrate, acknowledge, and commend the exceptional clinical efforts and research provided by our providers. This includes work from Physical Therapists, Physical Therapy Assistants (PTAs), and those who teach the next generation of Physical Therapists.

The practice of physical therapy dates back to Hippocrates, who advocated using massage, hydrotherapy, and manual therapy techniques to treat his patients.

September is dedicated to many important days of recognition, and I want to share two with you.

• A federal rule requires that ByteDance applications (e.g., TikTok) not be used on a device used for federal contract work.
   
• COVID data: Levels in the wastewater show high cases in North Carolina, but hospitalizations have not bumped up as high as in previous instances where wastewater levels were high. Duke is not changing COVID rules. The CDC recommended yesterday that everyone over six months old receive an updated COVID vaccination this fall.