Guest Editorial: Thoughts On The Amputee Clinic Team

Guest Editorial: Thoughts On The Amputee Clinic Team

Newton C. McCollough, III, M.D. 

The Amputee Clinic team as we know it today, evolved during World War II when the Surgeon General of the Army established a number of Amputee Centers within Army Hospitals to upgrade the management of these patients. Impetus to this multidisciplinary approach was given by the Veterans Administration in 1948 when suction suspension was introduced for the above knee amputee and a protocol was developed establishing the Amputee Clinic Team which initially comprised the physician, the prosthetist and the therapist.

Since that time as a more holistic approach to disability developed the team has been enlarged in most clinics to include the occupational therapist, social worker and vocational specialists among other disciplines.

The clinic team approach is comprehensive and unquestionably has resulted in superior management of patients with limb loss over the past thirty years. However, recently questions have been raised regarding the efficiency of such a clinic and whether or not a more streamlined approach is desirable from the standpoint of the logistical management of relatively large numbers of patients. The impersonal nature of such a clinic has also been impugned in recent years, and some have felt that the patient may actually be intimidated by such a host of professional personnel.

Several years ago, at the University of Miami, a compromise approach to amputee management was undertaken. All new patients and patients with identifiable medical problems (including skin breakdown) were seen in the traditional setting with the physician as the amputee team leader in clinic. Routine follow-up visits and problems which were purely prosthetic in nature were seen in "prosthetic clinic" by the prosthetist and therapist with a prosthetist as the team leader or clinic chief. Other clinic personnel including physicians were available for these clinics but were not necessarily in attendance. This approach was far more efficient in terms of man hours and in many ways more practical than imposing the traditional approach upon all patients at every clinic visit.

Two major drawbacks to this system of care slowly became apparent and currently we have resumed the traditional approach to all patients. The first difficulty encountered was that many routine prosthetic visits were also accompanied by concurrent medical problems which could not be identified before the patient was actually seen. Of course, the patient could be referred to the next "full team clinic" but this resulted in undue delay of treatment. Psychological or vocational problems though less frequent were also concurrent in some patients. Secondly, in a major teaching hospital, the education of residents, interns and students suffered from this approach. The critical analysis of prosthetic problems in relation to alignment, gait, suspension, etc. was lost upon students in the absence of interchange between prosthetist, physician and therapist. Additionally, innovative techniques in prosthetic management not infrequently result from discussions involving the prosthetist and physician and the presence of all team members in clinic greatly enhances this aspect of the amputee program.

In conclusion, I now feel that the multidisciplinary clinic team approach is sound and has no equal in the educational sphere. Spinoffs from the dialogue created may enhance prosthetic research and thus ultimately patient care. Efficiency in this sytem is less than ideal, but the benefits are greater in the long run. Suitable precautions must be taken to avoid "depersonalization" of the amputee in the multi-disciplinary environment and it is encumbent upon each team member to insure that the clinic experience is a rewarding one for the patient.