Interviewers: James Galbraith, Zach Fiske, Alex Barlow, and Bobby Oehrlein
Interviewee: John Grant, MD, PhD, FRCSC (Clinical Associate Professor and Orthopedic Surgeon, University of Michigan)
We interviewed Dr. Grant a second time after completion of our alpha prototype phase, which saw the realization of stand-alone guide only drilling the ALLR tunnel (Oasis) a 2-in-1 guide drilling both the ACLR and ALLR tunnels in direct reference to each other (Dune) to assess the feasibility of moving forward with each design philosophy.
Key Takeaways:
- Oasis prototype
- Clamping down on the skin is not reliable and would not yield accurate results since the guide would need to be attached to anatomical landmarks within the knee. Given the position of the clamps defined in the prototype design, this would require cutting through the quadricep tendon, which would cause unnecessarily morbid outcomes.
- This design philosophy also does not ensure avoidance of tunnel conflict since this guide does not reference the trajectory of the ACLR tunnel.
- Dune prototype
- Better design philosophy if the ultimate goal is to ensure tunnel conflict avoidance, since it directly references the trajectory of the ACLR tunnel when the ALLR tunnel is being drilled.
- The device needs to be somewhat flexible to allow for surgeon discretion. This is very important since surgeons have their own individual preferences with how they like to approach problems.
- Upon completion of this interview, we decided to move forward with the 2-in-1 guide design philosophy due to Dr. Grant’s input and its theoretical potential to more completely fulfill our objective of avoiding tunnel conflict between the ACLR and ALLR tunnels.