Events

Tom Joyce at Skeptics

  • Venue: Old George, Cloth Market, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1EZ
  • Start: Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:00:00 GMT
  • End: Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:00:00 GMT
Chances are you know someone with a hip replacement - it's the medical success story of the 20th century and has improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. However, in the 21st century, hip replacements are becoming a “public health nightmare” (New England Journal of Medicine), since it was discovered that some devices, called metal-on-metal, are leaking cobalt and chromium into people's blood and may be causing major health problems. Hundreds of thousands of these devices have been implanted into patients. 

Tom Joyce is part of a team of orthopaedic surgeons and biomedical engineers in the North East of England who are at the forefront of identifying the problems with metal-on-metal hips and their causes. Tom is the only independent biomedical engineer in the world who tests these devices after they have been removed from the body and examines them for specific design flaws. In this talk he'll discuss how problems with metal-on-metal hips have arisen and what we need to do to prevent such problems happening again.

 

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