Under the auspices of the American Austrian Foundation (AAF), the Open Medical Institute (OMI)-Salzburg Medical Seminar on Bone and Joint Surgery was founded in 1993 to share knowledge and experience with young English-speaking physicians from the former Communist world. Today, the OMI-Salzburg Medical Seminar allows 30 to 40 competitively selected physicians — primarily practicing in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the former Soviet Union, and other countries in transition — to interact with HSS and Weill Cornell Medicine staff in an academic environment that fosters both bilateral and international learning exchange. Facilitated through the AAF, the seminar is offered pro-bono and is funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, The Open Society Foundations, and corporate and individual donors.
Wolfgang Aulitzky, MD, Associate Dean for International Medicine and Distance Learning and a urologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and Medical Director of the AAF, directs the week-long seminar. Mathias Bostrom, MD, and Russell Windsor, MD, PC, work with three additional faculty members from HSS to coordinate the seminar’s lectures and workshops at Schloss Arenberg, a cultural and scientific center in Salzburg.
Through the Humes Visiting Professorship, course directors may present two or more lectures on cutting-edge developments in their field, grand rounds with residents and attending physicians, and a session with case presentations at their respective course co-director’s home institution. Thomas Sculco, MD, Surgeon-in-Chief Emeritus of HSS, completed an exchange with Ulrich Dorn, MD, former President of the Austrian Society for Orthopedics and Orthopedic Surgery, as part of a Humes Visiting Professorship in 1996.
Since 1992, over 166 American and Austrian medical residents have participated in the Andlinger Residency Exchange. This program is designed to give medical residents the opportunity to learn at a partner institution for two weeks to one month as a supplement to their training through experience with a foreign healthcare system.
The Austrian American Foundation, in conjunction with the Ines Mandl Research Foundation (IMRF), supports a three-year research fellowship to work with Mathias P. Bostrom, MD, in his lab at HSS to study total knee replacements — specifically, how bone mass affects osseointegration. From February to August 2019, Kevin Staats, MD, had the opportunity to conduct connective tissue research for six months at HSS. The 2020 fellow is Dr. Gérladine Sturz of the Medical University of Vienna, who will be conducting research at HSS for three months.
Kevin Staats, MD
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