About Joint Action

Joint Action is the Orthopaedic Research Appeal of The British Orthopaedic Association.

The British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) was formed in 1918 with twelve founding members. Today, with over 4,300 members, the Association sees its purpose as working for the benefit of patients by improving Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery. The BOA believes it has been very successful in this role and the increasing demand is reflected in the fact that, today, 40% of all surgeons in the UK work in Trauma and Orthopaedics.

The early days of Orthopaedics were concerned with deformities in children. Nicholas Andry, who was Professor of Medicine at the University of Paris, first used the term Orthopaedics - derived from the Greek words for orthos("correct", "straight") and paedia ("rearing"(usually of child)) - when he published a book entitled "Orthopaedia: or , The Art of Correcting and Preventing Deformities in Children" in 1741 at the age of 81. His method of correcting excessive curvature of a child's leg was "to apply as soon as possible a small plate of iron on the hollow side of the leg and fasten it about the leg with a linen roller. In a word, the same method must be used in this case, for recovering the shape of the leg, as is used for making straight the crooked trunk of a young tree." Following this, the international symbol for orthopaedics is the Tree of Andry - a crooked young tree held against a stake by a rope. This symbol forms part of the BOA's coat of arms. Click here to read more about the Tree of Andry.

Today, adults, children - people just like you - are benefitting and will benefit from the efforts of orthopaedic surgeons.

In fact, 1 in 2 of us will need treatment at some point during our lifetime. Young fit people are frequently injured in sport or road traffic accidents. Also, one of the common needs in the over 60's age group is for an artificial hip. In this case, a British orthopaedic surgeon, the late Professor Sir John Charnley, led the way by carrying out the first full hip replacement in 1962 at The Wrightington Hospital in Lancashire. Since then British Surgeons, with the support of the BOA have made many more improvements to treatment.