Dustin Morgan, MD, with his research poster, which won first place at the 2023 annual meeting of the NYS Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
Resident’s Research Project Wins Multiple Honors
By Dirk Hoffman
Published September 20, 2023
Dustin Morgan, MD, a PGY-5 chief resident in the orthopaedics residency program, won first place in the resident poster competition at the 2023 annual meeting of the NYS Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons (NYSSOS) Sept. 9 in Rochester.
His poster, was titled “Multidisciplinary Standardized Protocol Decreases Time to Antibiotics for Open Fractures: A Resident-Driven Quality Improvement Initiative.”
Morgan says open fractures pose a problem for orthopaedic surgeons due to their high rate of infection compared to other injuries and that receiving antibiotics in a timely manner is of utmost importance in these injuries.
Improving Protocols for Open Fractures
“The Erie County Medical Center is accredited as a Level 1 Trauma Center by The American College of Surgeons, and one of its quality measures is for open fractures to receive antibiotics within one hour of arrival,” he says.
“We collaborated with the General Surgery and Emergency Medicine departments, pharmacy, nursing leadership, and information technology to develop and implement a new protocol for administering antibiotics for patients with open fractures,” Morgan adds.
As a result, we significantly decreased the time it takes for patients with open fractures to receive antibiotics from 69 to 39 minutes, and the percentage of patients receiving antibiotics within one hour significantly increased from 43% to 79%.”
Co-authors on the poster are Joshua Uffer, MD; Christopher E. Mutty, MD, clinical assistant professor of orthopaedics; and Mark J. Anders, MD, clinical assistant professor of orthopaedics.
In addition to winning first place in the NYSSOS competition, Morgan’s poster also won a research award this past June at the Department of Orthopaedics’ Orthopaedic Residency Scientific Day.
“I have been working on this project for the past three years,” Morgan says. “We encountered many challenges along the way, COVID-19 in particular, so it is very rewarding to see these results reflect the improvements we've made. These awards demonstrate the importance of the project and positive impact on patient care.”
Ellen E. Lutnick, MD, a PGY-2 orthopaedics resident, also had a poster accepted at the NYSSOS annual meeting held at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Rochester.
It was titled “Survey Assessment of Perception of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Characteristic in the Orthopaedic Surgery Workforce.”