Mr Luke Farrow, a local orthopaedic surgeon has been awarded a Chief Scientist Office (CSO) Clinical Academic Fellowship. The fellowship will allow him to dedicate time to research. As an orthopaedic surgeon, he performs operations like hip or knee replacements for patients with severe arthritis.
We asked Mr Farrow about the importance of his research and he said: “More than 1 in 10 people over the age of 45 have arthritis. In severe cases, people with arthritis find it difficult to perform normal activities such as walking, getting dressed or going to the shops. Some have described living with the condition as a state “worse than death”. Surgery provides an excellent solution but is not a suitable option for all patients.”
Currently GPs often have difficulty deciding which patients with arthritis might benefit from an operation. This leads to many referrals to orthopaedics and prolonged waiting times for surgery, a problem that has been made even worse by the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic.
In his research project Mr Farrow will work with colleagues from the University of Aberdeen’s Health Data Science & Computing departments to find out whether Artificial intelligence* (AI) can help General Practitioners’ (GPs) make decisions about which patients with arthritis to refer for hip or knee replacement surgery. He hopes that such a tool will reduce waiting times and help those needing surgery to get back on their feet again quickly.
*From Google dictionary: Artificial Intelligence is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.