Dear colleagues and friends,

It is obvious that the health landscape in Belgium is about to be transformed by impending government-driven regulation with potentially significant impact on orthopaedic surgical and trauma care.

A morning session jointly organized with the present health care authorities (‘Quo vadis orthopaedics?’) will hopefully clarify matters substantially.

Furthermore, hospital stays are becoming increasingly shorter in duration, which in turn brings about care transfer to primary care physicians, visiting home nurses, physiotherapists and more.

In this respect, fine-tuning and synchronising our care pathways becomes instrumental and is indeed one of the main objectives of the convention.

Apart from the upcoming major regulatory and financial changes, we observe – unmistakably – a trend towards sub-specialisation which undoubtedly has improved the quality of musculo-skeletal patient care. However, joint discussions about common themes and concerns, as well as meetings to determine efficient strategies, remain a crucial requirement for the wellbeing and advancement of our profession. The annual national convention continues to serve as the perfect platform for these aims.

United we stand, divided we fall.

We hope you will enjoy and get inspired!

See you in Brussels,

Guy Molenaers                                                             David Zorman

BVOT President                                                           Sorbcot President