Int’l Clubfoot Symposium starts this week
Nearly 200 physicians and other health care providers, representing at least 30 countries, have signed up to attend the International Clubfoot Symposium, an event to explore research, patient care and education. The event will take place Sept. 12 to 14 at the Marriott Coralville Hotel and Convention Center in Coralville, Iowa.
A related event, the fourth annual Ponseti Clubfoot Races, will be held at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 14, at the Marriott.
The symposium is being organized by Ponseti International, the University of Iowa-based organization that promotes the gentle, non-surgical clubfoot correction technique invented more than 50 years ago by UI emeritus professor of orthopaedics and rehabilitation Dr. Ignacio Ponseti. Early in his UI career, Ponseti realized that surgical approaches were not successful and set about developing the method that now bears his name.
Since nearly 80 percent of children born with clubfoot live in impoverished nations, an essential advantage of the treatment is that it can be taught to nonphysician health care providers in areas with few or no doctors. In addition to finding ways to take the treatment to those countries, the conference also will address increasing awareness and use of the method in countries with better health care, where surgery is used. Currently, only about half the orthopedists in the United States are actively using the Ponseti Method, which has documented results and peer-reviewed research to show that it is more than 95 percent effective.
For more information on the symposium, please go to the event’s Web site.