New lecturer will contribute to research and clinical outcomes in orthopaedic biomechanics in the NT
A new Charles Darwin University (CDU) lecturer is excited to teach biomechanics and contribute to research and clinical projects relating to orthopaedic biomechanics in the Northern Territory.
Dr Yoong Lim joined CDU earlier this year, and his primary research typically uses medical imaging to create 3D static models for surgical planning, and utilizes experimental biomechanical data, like walking, to drive realistic dynamic computer models to determine joint function and health.
Dr Lim has completed a PhD in experimental and computational biomechanics and has significant clinical and research experiences with orthopaedic surgeons.
Given the multiple factors determining outcomes in orthopaedics, he emphasises the value of patient-reported outcomes being an essential part of elective orthopaedic surgeries.
“Despite Darwin being a modern city with a young population, it does have proportionally more people suffering from joint conditions and diseases.,” he said.
Recent interests have been in using robotics and alignment philosophies to improve knee replacement outcomes.
Together with his co-authors, Dr Lim’s recent study published in Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy, found that variations in lower-limb angles after total knee replacement cannot explain clinical outcomes.
Their finding may suggest that having an experienced arthroplasty surgeon may be more relevant to achieve good outcomes than new technology and surgical alignment philosophy.
“I’ve already met great surgeons in Darwin and am looking forward to collaborating with them,” he said.
Dr Lim has also shared a current research project in which he and his team are using machine learning to automatically measure cartilages within the knee joint to obtain clinical data, which would be a very tedious task to do clinically by hand.
For example, it would take up to half a day to measure the cartilages within the knee joint manually, and the trained machine can do it within 1 minute.
He believes machine learning has an important role in improving healthcare because it can solve challenging clinical problems by completing tasks efficiently and accurately.
“I remember a line by Professor Scott Bowman in one of his Vice-Chancellor’s Friday Musings; -we have a duty to make this a better university for the people we serve. – and that’s what I hope to achieve while teaching my students and working with new colleagues to improve outcomes.”
Dr Lim aspires to use his clinical and research skills to improve clinical outcomes in orthopaedics for people in the NT. Further, he aims to introduce his students to clinical works and opportunities within orthopaedic medicine.