Orthopaedic Trauma Association

Fracture Conference

Case 1 - An ununited fracture of the femoral neck

Wayne State University School of Medicine
 
This case presentation is an html sample of a networkable, cross-platform, familiar web-browser format for case-based education.

OTA Case Presentation - Motivation

It has been often said that durable medical education does not begin until the patient encounter. Prior to that time, the triad of Weed "memorize-regurgitate-forget" prevails.

When confronted with a clinical problem, rarely does thinking occur along the linear outlines of lectures or chapters in a book. More often it takes the form of a non-linear comparative analysis as the case at hand is matched against similar cases from previous experience in the selection of diagnosis and treatment.

When previous experience is insufficient, reading compensates. But here again, the presence of an actual case heightens the intensity and concentration of that reading.

There is an impossible amount to read today. Most of it is redundant. Quantity threatens quality. Succinct, qualified, highly graphical presentations in context and in response to real questions may palliate the congestive information failure.

OTA Case Presentation - Requirements

This presentation is image intensive. It is intended for distribution on CD-ROM which will enable large image files to appear quickly on the screen. To run it over the internet you should have at least an ISDN connection. It will probably be intolerably slow over a 28.8 or 33.3 modem.

Any computer with 16 - preferably 32 MB of RAM which is capable of displaying "thousands of colors" (16 bit color) and running a Netscape Navigator 3.01 or later version web browser will suffice. Netscape Navigator 3.01 is a free download from the Netscape corporation. It will be included as the default browser on the CD-ROM.

Netscape is the preferred browser not only because this was made America - where we root for the original and the underdog and hate the money-hungry monopolies - but also because Netscape has the more advanced implementation of JavaScript which is used throughout this program.

If you must use Internet Explorer, you need at least Version 4.0. Even then be prepared for some compromises when you encounter anatomical image maps which enable you to identify the structures depicted by placing your cursor over them. Internet Explorer, for some unknown reason, has minimized the status bar at the bottom of the web browser window where such labeling information is displayed. Many of the descriptive labels are therefore truncated.

The suboptimal workarounds include setting your screen resolution to 800x600 or a free download which creates a separate status bar window called "knowhere" (http://chattanooga.net/~scochran/downloads.htm).

OTA Case Presentation - Directions

To navigate from question to question, use the navigation buttons (<= Back, Index, Next =>) in the Navigation frame.

To navigate within a question, use the links and buttons within the other two (Text and Picture) frames.

Tip: To better view large images or contents within the Picture or Text frames, you may enlarge the frame by placing the cursor over the center partition and drag it (<=>) in the desired direction.

Troubleshooting: If images fail to appear normally, try clicking the "Reload" or "Refresh" buttons at the top of the browser window. If this fails, set the Netscape "Display Images" preference to "After Loading".

Mac computer users may wish to reset the memory partition for Netscape allowing the application to have at least 10-12 MB of RAM.

Internet Explorer 4 users - If your answers to the questions are not displayed, check to see that your web browser is JavaScript enabled. (IE4 - View/Internet Options/Advanced/Java JIT compiler enabled).

WDB - 1/1/98