I spent a really interesting and challenging 6 months as Julian Feller's Fellow in 2003, and took away his ACL reconstruction technique with me when I returned to Scotland to set up practice. During the intervening 15 years, we have both made a few tweaks to our respective surgical approaches to ACLs, in line with new evidence as it emerges, but we remain pretty much aligned on the important points - put a good quality biological graft in the right place and fix it firmly, then do good rehab.
When I was learning from him, I asked about Julian's approach to placing the bone tunnels into which the graft was secured - do you use the lateral meniscus and/or PCL to guide placement? "Put it in the right place" was his response. An idiosyncratic answer at the time, but over the years I have increasingly appreciated his point that the individual patient's anatomy governs where the graft should go.
I now bring that and other insights to my clinical practice in Warrnambool. I learnt from the best, and aim to reproduce that for all of my patients.
When I was learning from him, I asked about Julian's approach to placing the bone tunnels into which the graft was secured - do you use the lateral meniscus and/or PCL to guide placement? "Put it in the right place" was his response. An idiosyncratic answer at the time, but over the years I have increasingly appreciated his point that the individual patient's anatomy governs where the graft should go.
I now bring that and other insights to my clinical practice in Warrnambool. I learnt from the best, and aim to reproduce that for all of my patients.
Julian Feller 2003
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