I started my career in O&P in 1981 as a technician making $7.00 an hour. Ronald Reagan was just starting his first term, gas cost $1.35, my car cost $400, and had an 8-track tape player.
To claim I started out as a tech is kind of insulting to the many talented O&P technicians I’ve met through the years. In those early days, I emptied barrels, mixed plaster, swept floors, and tried not to get in the way. I eventually got to help drape plastic onto AFOs and trim and finish scoliosis braces – I had arrived. Or at least, I was contributing.
Back then, people still smoked inside at work (a lot), and O&P central fab facilities had zero ventilation. No matter what was getting cooked in the ovens – which, most days, included our lunches.
By the time I entered O&P, plastic had become the go-to material for fabrication, but metal, leather, and wood were still commonly used. Orthotics & Prosthetics was very much a profession of craftsmen. Modifications were done by touch and feel. A big part of the job was improvisation and ingenuity. Need a device lighter? Drill holes in it. Need a posterior stop? Rivet a widget onto the brace. The leg is making noise? Try WD-40. Still making noise? Turn up the radio.
But the profession evolved. Over the past forty years, I’ve witnessed numerous improvements, innovations, and disruptions. By the late 80s, carbon fiber was no longer used only to build airplanes – prosthetics borrowed the material technology and put it to good use for feet that combined durability with energy storage and return.
In the late 80s, I recall a small upstart Nordic company coming to the U.S. with a silicone prosthetic liner that got everyone’s attention.
It wasn’t just new fabrication materials that changed the landscape – technology was entering the conversation. In the 90s, we all became acquainted with the phrase CAD/CAM and tried to decide which software and carver were the best. And of course, as circuit boards shrank and computing power increased, data processing merged with the needs of the limb-loss community to usher in the truly revolutionary age of Microprocessor Knees (MPKs).
In the past decade, 3D printing has demanded our attention and become part of the lexicon. AI now leads the conversation in every profession, including O&P, as we wonder how it will enhance – and inevitably change – the way we care for patients.
Not all changes in O&P over the past 40 years have been driven by high-tech or material breakthroughs. In many cases, it was simply approaching a situation from a different perspective. Nocturnal bracing, adjustable sockets, and cranial helmets all required clinicians to take a slightly different approach than had previously been the norm.
So even after 44 years, I’m still excited by the new things O&P can and will do. And at Lindhe Xtend, we’ve embraced the idea that change should be constant. Disruption of the status quo leads to innovation – and we strive to be agents of change and champions of innovation.
//Russell Cannon, Chief Sales Officer, Lindhe Xtend
Join us in congratulating Russell on this well-deserved role!