2021 Virtual AOA Annual Leadership Meetings: An Interview with Dr. Bill Moutzouros

Bill Moutzouros, MD FAOA  joins AOA hosts Charles A. Goldfarb, MD, FAOA, and Alexander Aleem, MD  to discuss the upcoming 2021 Virtual AOA Annual Leadership Meetings.
 
Dr. Moutzouros is the  Annual Meeting Chair for the 2021 meeting and provides insights related to the 2021 Virtual AOA Annual Leadership Meetings including :

• Planning process
• Advantages and challenges with a virtual format
• Symposia topics
• Networking and making connections virtually

More information regarding the 2021 Virtual Annual Leadership Meetings can be found here.

Thank you to our industry partners:  Biomarin, DePuy Synthes, Zimmer Biomet, Radius Health, Medtronic, PrecisionOS, and Acumed for their generous support of the 2021 Virtual AOA Annual Leadership Meetings.

Music:
Special thanks to Peter Martin of Peter Martin Music, Inc (@iampetermartin) for the jazz introduction and conclusion. 

Transcript

Charles Goldfarb 0:13  

Welcome to the AOA’s Lessons in Orthopaedic Leadership. I'm Charles Goldfarb and I'm joined by my co-host Alexander Aleem. We have a special guest tonight, Bill Moutzouros, to discuss the AOA Annual Meeting. I like to give a brief introduction for Dr. Moutzouros as he is our Annual Meeting Chair for the 2021 meeting. Bill was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, attended Loyola University for both undergraduate and the School of Medicine and he graduated with honors and had AOA recognition. His orthopedic training was completed in Boston at the Tufts New England Baptist Hospital program. And from there, he went to the Cleveland Clinic for a sports medicine fellowship. He moved to Henry Ford Hospital in 2007 and is currently the chief of Sports Medicine. He is an official team physician for the Detroit Pistons, Wayne State University, Oakland University and Detroit Country Day at every level. Thanks for joining us this evening, Bill and welcome. 

Bill Moutzouros 1:14  

Thank you, Charles.

Alexander Aleem 1:15  

Bill, it's great to have you. And obviously, the annual meeting is a big undertaking, but especially in the era of COVID, virtual meetings are an even bigger undertaking. And we're really, really looking forward to the meeting this year, maybe just to start, tell us what the AOA Annual Meeting means to you, and what your hope is for people interested in the meeting to kind of take out of it.

Bill Moutzouros 1:40  

So, the annual meeting for me has always represented leadership, it’s represented networking and just relationships in terms of not only academic medicine, but all of Orthopaedic medicine. And what we're trying to do this year, since it's a very unique year, obviously, with what's happened with COVID, is we're trying to make and diversify our topics. So therefore, it relates to all of our speed surgeons, no matter where you are, in terms of your career path, and try to give some teachable moments and try to bring back some knowledge to make our practices more robust, especially during such a difficult time. 

Charles Goldfarb 2:17  

Perfect. You know, I think sometimes people confuse the AOA as an academic only organization. And we certainly know that's not true but tell us how you hope that the annual meeting, virtual style can open the doors to many others.

Bill Moutzouros 1:40  

 So, from my standpoint, the advantage of being virtual is that it allows a greater kind of recognition and ability to get to the meeting. It allows us to really hone in on specific topics. And as many people think it isn't just an academic only organization, the topics that we're really talking about relate to private practitioners, it relates to hospital based orthopaedic surgeons, it relates to those who are just coming out of training are new and career. And we do that by focusing on specific topics, whether it's value-based care, or diversity and training, whether it comes to healthcare disparities, which is a big push, you know, we're trying to hit the topics that orthopaedic surgeons want to learn about and have the most pressing topics. For us moving forward. 

Alexander Aleem 3:19  

You mentioned the topics in the symposium that, you know, they're starting in May, with kind of a three symposium a kind of preview for the meeting. Are there any topics that you really kind of wanted to sort of make your mark with this meeting sort of new topics for the AOA annual meeting?

Bill Moutzouros 3:37  

So, the simple answer is yes. I will say as challenging as it has been, for us to schedule meetings for which we thought maybe would be in person, or would be hybrid, therefore, being online and partially in person. And then finally, now just being online, you know, you're trying to plan a number of different meetings. And for us, the theme was really to hit on a few things, which is, one, we're promoting the advancement in terms of diversity in orthopaedic surgery, which has been progressing very well. And we hope to continue to progress, that theme. And we do that every year, in the AOA. 

But not just that, we want to talk about healthcare disparities, we want to talk about especially in this age of COVID, on why certain individuals get, you know, a specific amount of healthcare resource versus others, and how do we balance the playing field, and we would have been in New Mexico this year, and it would have been something that relates to New Mexico and their patient population significantly. So, my hope is that the AOA membership really feels that. 

And then finally, it's about leadership, right? We're talking about medical student mentorship, and we're talking about leadership for all our aesthetic surgeons that how they advance their careers, whether it's early, mid, or towards the end. And how do you go out in a respectable, powerful and just comfortable position, which sometimes is difficult to do, and we hope to touch on all of those things. with numerous symposia. You know, we have three in May, and we have a number in June for the annual meeting. Then my hope is that the membership and those who are not members really do appreciate what we're trying to bring forward. 

Charles Goldfarb 5:09  

So, for those who may not be familiar with the process, this is a carefully cultivated list of symposia, and meetings and social interactions. And it is awkward to shift it online. But I think you've designed a spectacular program. But this is not an overnight development process. Just talk us through when you got started in kind of learning and planning for annual meetings and how that's come about. 

Bill Moutzouros 5:36  

So, Chuck, it's tough, because it probably started about two years ago. And if all of us look back two years in 2019, we almost all wish we were back to 2019. But it's a two-year process, we go through the Ideations and Critical Issues Committees about what's the most pressing issues in orthopaedic surgery. Myself, as a program chair, tries to bring forward some ideas, and then we try to get the membership to submit and we review all those things. And try to score them appropriately and present a meeting that is diverse, that is thorough, that is welcoming.

 And we're trying to change it up a little bit. In terms of the networking side of it when you're virtual, you know, the biggest thing that I missed out last year is seeing everyone. And my hope is that this year by throwing some networking events in, we can just hang out, and we can talk even in a virtual format, about what's pressing us in our departments, and just relax for a little bit. Which I think all of us need, we all need to take a little bit of a step back and have some relaxation with each other. Because I think we all miss it, you know, we missed seeing each other and miss spending time with each other. 

Alexander Aleem 6:38  

I think that's one of the things that I miss the most about meetings, you know, is, is sometimes painful is traveling to a meeting and you kind of worry about taking time off of your clinical schedule and going somewhere really that social interaction and getting to sort of see colleagues make new friends make new connections, such an important part and we haven't had that talk to us a little bit, how do you set up these networking events? Because just from personal experience trying to do this during resident recruitment, kind of setting up virtual happy hours, I mean, it's a challenge, especially on an online format. So, sort of maybe talk about kind of the networking formats and sort of some strategies to make sure that they're not just 50 people staring at each other on a on a Zoom platform?

Bill Moutzouros 7:20  

So that's a great question. So, the first way we do that is we try to soften it up a little bit beginning, which is we really highlighted and represented as is, you know, cocktails and conversation. Which is, you know, grab whatever drink, whether it's alcoholic or nonalcoholic, no one's promoting anything specific. But try to get something that that allows you to relax and discuss openly specific topics. And the way we're doing it is we're trying to break out some really basic kind of easy to talk about issues and try to put some leaders in these particular virtual setups, and have individuals sign up and be guided towards those setups. And really, what we're looking for is our membership to look at a topic really want to learn more about it, but to hear from our orthopaedic leaders, and get the conversation going. It is difficult, right? When you when you have numerous people, but the hope is that, you know, with the way it's set up and with the topics that we have, and with the fact that we don't want it to be buttoned up, sometimes people feel like to be an intimidating place. You have people that you look up to and have for a very long time speaking and you're hesitant to ask, but we're going to bring down those walls this year. And we're going to try to do that repeatedly in the AOA moving forward. So, people feel like you can ask anything. There is there is no difficult question. We're here to try to interact with each other and be united and trying to get the best out of the meeting and best out of each other. 

Charles Goldfarb 8:44 

I like how you said that. I remember certainly. And I don't know that it's completely gone away, that a little reticence in speaking up at these meetings and just comfort level in the meetings. And actually, the virtual the virtual meeting plan it really opens the doors to all of us for participation. And just being involved that hopefully people will take real steps forward towards their comfort level and being in this environment, whether it be small groups or larger groups, asking anything and as you said, just being open. 

Bill Moutzouros 9:14 

Chuck, one of the biggest things that in terms of my program chairside, is the way we've had to adjust for virtual meeting is in our symposium can't go too long, obviously when your virtual setup because you know, you oftentimes can lose sometimes your audience, but one of the biggest parts of it is leaving that time for discussion. So, I guess for those who have participated in AOA meetings before, some of the best feedback we get is from the discussion side. So, we've allowed a significant amount of time for discussion. We're in encouraging the chat function and the Q & A function, the open mic session portions, so therefore there's interaction and we have been pleasantly surprised. We've done a few symposia already this this past year, the past six months, and we really feel good about the amount of interaction the amount of chat. And it's really carried a lot of our symposia. So, I encourage the membership to be open. I think that's my personality. And I hope that that kind of is shown through this annual meeting as we move forward. 

Alexander Aleem 10:15

This sounds awesome, and I think Chuck and I are both really looking forward to, to joining in and kind of participating in these. If I could ask you to give kind of your elevator sales pitch to maybe someone that's on the fence, or someone that's not really thinking about including the AOA annual meeting in their plans for May and June, what would be your final pitch to tell someone, “Hey, this is worth taking the time, you know, it's a little bit spread out because it's virtual, but you should really take advantage of these, these offerings that the AOA has.”

 Bill Moutzouros 9:14 

So, my pitch to them would be the opportunity to learn about leadership and these particular topics, really finds a home in the AOA. And I believe that for those who have not experienced an AOA symposium, that once they do and they understand the interaction and why we're talking about these specific topics, they’ll really be sold on it and be able to bring that back home to their practices. And they want to be participating again in the future. 

There is nothing like talking about what issues come up day to day in orthopaedic surgery, away from the minutia a little bit and that's not to say it's minutia, but some of the things that we deal with in all of our subspecialties. It's really nice to bring orthopaedic surgeons together to think that that's what we were first right? We were all orthopaedic surgeons first before we were hand surgeons or sports medicine surgeons or oncologists. And we all have commonality related to that. And I hope that people feel when they come to an AOA meeting, and they see this symposium this relates to everybody. Value based care relates to everybody. Diversity relates to everybody. Healthcare disparities relates to everybody. And I think once people actually experience that, they come back to it is what they do. So that would be my sales pitch for everyone out there. 

Charles Goldfarb 11:59 

It's a good sales pitch. Bill, I want to thank you, I know you have devoted an incredible amount of time to making this annual meeting happen. You together with AOA staff, President Parson,s and others are really put together a remarkable program. And that, you know, Zoom fatigue is real, but I encourage everyone to join us because it really is going to be a spectacular meeting. So thank you. Most importantly, thanks for joining us tonight. Thank you for all the work you've put in. I'm going to close with just a little bit of final information for the audience. 

We hope you can join us for the 2021 virtual AOA Annual Leadership Meetings which begin on May 4 and conclude on June 29. And the schedule is available at www.aoassn.org. We will include Critical Issues Symposia will convene orthopaedic educators, will address bone health topic,s and present key early career development opportunities. There's a huge range of offerings for all orthopaedic leaders and that really means all orthopaedic surgeons in all practice areas at all career stages, so join us you won't be disappointed. 

Finally, I'd like to thank our annual meeting sponsors. their generous support makes this meeting possible and includes our industry partners Biomarin, DePuy Synthes, Zimmer Biomet, Radius Health, Medtronic, PrecisionOS, and Acumed.

 Bill, thank you. 

Bill Moutzouros 13:25 

Thank you guys. Thanks, Alex. Thanks, Chuck. Appreciate it. 

Alexander Aleem 13:28

Thanks, Bill.