Meet the Researchers

For Young Learners

What This Is

Research is a job. People are paid to spend their week finding out whether something is true, and a large amount of what this site teaches exists because somebody did that.

This page describes the work and the kinds of group that do it. Profiles of named researchers are not attached yet. A profile needs that person's agreement and needs checking with them, and neither had happened when this page was written, so nothing has been invented in the meantime.

Most school students have never met a researcher and have no mental picture of the job beyond a laboratory bench. Very little knee research happens at a bench.

It also matters because research is a route in. Several people now working in knee medicine arrived through a science degree and a research group rather than through medical school.

How It Works

Knee research is done by four fairly different kinds of group.

Clinical research groups. Based in hospitals, usually led by a surgeon or a physiotherapist, running trials on patients. The question is whether a treatment works, and the work is mostly recruiting people, following them up for years and analysing what happened.

Biomechanics laboratories. Based in universities, using motion capture, force plates and sometimes cadaveric specimens. The question is how a joint behaves under load.

Imaging research. Working out what a scan can and cannot show, which is less settled than most people assume.

Engineering and materials groups. Designing implants and testing how they fail. The question is often how long something lasts, which takes a long time to answer honestly.

A single question can involve all four. Why a reconstructed ligament fails in a teenager is a clinical question, a mechanical question, an imaging question and a materials question at the same time.

How to Prepare

Research needs the same school subjects as the clinical careers do, with more mathematics than most people expect. Statistics is the tool the whole field runs on.

Do a project. Chapter 0.5.2 exists for this. Having carried out one investigation, however small, puts you ahead of most applicants at every later stage.

Look for university outreach. Many biomechanics laboratories run school visits and summer schemes, and they are usually under subscribed.

Learn to read a paper. Chapter 0.5.3 covers it, and it is the entry skill for the whole field.

Common Mistakes

Assuming research means a laboratory coat. Most knee research is clinics, spreadsheets and long follow up.

Assuming it needs a medical degree. Many knee researchers are engineers, physiotherapists, statisticians or physicists.

Thinking it is a solitary job. Nearly all of it is done by teams across several institutions.

Expecting fast answers. A question about how long an implant lasts cannot be answered in less than the time the implant lasts.

Where to Find Out More

Section 12 of this site is the Research Academy and covers method, statistics and appraisal in full.

University departments of orthopaedics, bioengineering and sport science publish their current projects, and reading a few of those pages gives a realistic picture of the work.

A school careers adviser can look for local university outreach schemes, which are the most realistic way for a school student to see a research group at work.