OWL editors received the following review/comment and have elected to post it. The qualifications of the authors appear to be in epidemiology and statistical analysis and this paper is an analysis of the patterns of practice of foot and ankle surgery in Australia. <br>
A correspondent writes - Though they write about foot and ankle surgery, none of these authors appear to have any recognisable medical or surgical qualifications (M.D., M..B.B.S., D.P.M., D.O.) which would then lead to training and credentials in foot and ankle surgery. Consequently this needs to be taken into account regarding their interpretations, discussions, and conclusory remarks.

Michael Kurer and Christopher Gooding (North Middlesex Hospital, UK) have posted a very valuable resource OrthopaedicScores.com (www.orthopaedicscores.com) Currently it contains 10 surgeon based scoring systems (such as Harris Hip Score) and 20 patient based systems such as WOMAC (for knee and hip). The site is set up so that you can access the score, enter the data with simple checkboxes and radio buttons and obtain an instant total. The result can be printed out and there are references (links) to the original publications and to articles validating and stratifying the score results. This is a great example of the use of information technology to solve a persistent problem - in my case, what exactly is the scoring system that this article refers to and where do I find it?