https://www.facebook.com/100484774896471/

Zach Bernhard, DO, MBA, Cleveland, OH (2026)

11/19/2023

Adding to the literature surrounding potential benefits of robotic assisted arthroplasty.

09/04/2023

Link below👇🏼 I'll be completing a 25 mile bike ride for the cure this year! For everyone who wants to end cancer, VeloSano is a global fundraising movement for hope and action, created to swiftly enable the treatments of today and the cures of tomorrow through innovative, transformative research happening at Cleveland Clinic locations around the world. This cause is very important to us all at CCF and your donation will help me meet my fundraising goal. Together we will make a significant impact in the lives of millions of people around the world improving cancer outcomes through research. I appreciate anyone willing to click the green donate button on my page to make your gift today. I truly appreciate your support!

https://give.velosano.org/fundraiser/4591005

08/29/2022

Huge proponent of the latest advances in technology for arthroplasty, including robotic assistance and computed navigation. There’s a long way to go in the way of investigating how these advances help us provide patients the best possible outcomes. Although nothing exceptional came from our investigation, I see these advances as here to stay and see great benefit from them. Check it out below ⬇️

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35984446/

11/15/2021

A Meta-Analysis (one of the strongest study types for clinical evidence) from 2013 by Simic, Sarabon, and Markovic found use of static stretching as a sole activity during a warm up routine should be avoided.

PMID: 22316148

The negative effects of static stretching can be kept at bay if held for

08/29/2021

First official sideline coverage on Friday. Nothing like Ohio Friday night lights.

03/15/2021

I’m going to be an orthopedic surgeon!🦴🪚

Truly a surreal feeling to know it’s official. There’s no man I admire more on this earth than my dad. The dream from day 1 was always to try and follow in his footsteps but I could never have imagined what it would end up taking to make it a reality.

Thank you to anyone who has helped me along the way and congrats to the rest of the class of 2021.

Excited for the challenges of the next five years and to see on Friday where I get the privilege to learn and train.

03/12/2021

Back half of Open Workout 21.1 in a nutshell😅
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Brutal. Not ideal😂
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Regardless of how you decide to get your exercise and improve your health, you have to push your limits. No matter what you do, the #1 reason people don’t make improvements or see results is an unwillingness to make themselves uncomfortable.
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Intensity, even in short bursts, will always yield results and it doesn’t have to be something crazy (like this was).
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Wishing everyone better luck than me on 21.1! It’s not too late to jump in.
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03/05/2021

The reality is that by now we probably didn’t need a study to confirm this. Nonetheless, the research and statistics to support what has been suspected is in print. It is very real and if the US wants to understand why we were hit so hard by COVID-19, one of the largest reasons among many others, lies within studies like this.
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My hope is that COVID-19 has served as a wake up call for our country in some way. I actually gave my thoughts in a post way back at the beginning of the pandemic about what good I hoped might come from something so terrible. That was long before any of what we have watched unfold.
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I’m also not naive in that just like anything, as time passes and life goes back to normal, so will habits. Life is busy, life is stressful, life is overwhelming. No matter how busy one might be or how many things might get in the way, I hope everyone will devote the time, energy, money or resources moving forward towards their health. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Burpees and body weight squats aren’t fun...but they are free.
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My entire goal with this page in addition to sharing things I think others might find interesting, has been to share things I know allow me to live an extremely busy and stressful life all the while keeping my health. Efficiency in a routine that ultimately becomes a subconscious habit, can provide a ton of freedom. There truly are simple fixes and tricks to everyday life that can make a huge difference in health and productivity over time.
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$What we’ve got is a displaced left midshaft clavicle fracture. Fancy for a really separated broken collarbone. Like any ...$

01/29/2021

What we’ve got is a displaced left midshaft clavicle fracture. Fancy for a really separated broken collarbone. Like any orthopedic injury, a lot goes into determining management. Let’s walk the process (swipe for final product).
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Depending on where you look these account for up to 4% of all fractures, about 80% in the middle third. This is attributed to the junction of the outer and middle third being the thinnest portion of bone, not protected by muscle/ligamentous attachment.
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At the most basic level of management, we have to ask how displaced is it and is there any contact between ends? The closer approximated, the better chance it has of healing and healing correctly. This one is displaced but not comminuted. Also, is it shortened? This one, sure but not a lot. As a general rule >2 cm of shortening and 100% displacement or a characteristic “Z deformity” calls for open reduction internal fixation (ORIF).
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Another major consideration, how old is the patient? This adult makes us lean for fixation, but some instances in kid’s make us think twice as their bones are very resilient. Abundant blood supply and nutrient delivery in the periosteum allows them to heal some pretty crazy fractures. Although really rare, injury to the lungs or nearby critical neurovascular structures is another consideration so we don’t want to operate on kids unless completely necessary in any scenario. Studies show that eldery and female patients especially have higher rates of poor outcomes, nonunion, and cosmetic deformities if comminuted and displaced clavicle fractures are treated non-op.
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Things that lead us to operative treatment regardless of the considerations above are open fractures, those “tenting” the skin, vascular injury or a “floating shoulder”.
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To give this clavicle the best chance/quickest time to union as well as functionality moving forward, ORIF was carried out. Again, fancy for making an incision and anatomically reapproximating the bone ends while finally screwing a plate onto the bone. In this case with a clean fracture line, a lag screw was added to provide added interfragmentary compression.

$Update: The “Audition” Trail—————Needless to say I’ve done a fraction of what I hoped with this. Part of the reasoning ...$

10/02/2020

Update: The “Audition” Trail
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Needless to say I’ve done a fraction of what I hoped with this. Part of the reasoning has been the result of COVID and how it has altered and strained the entire landscape of medical education, while the other reason is the time of year for 4th year medical students. I never want to post just to post, I need both the time and a purpose.
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To bring people up to speed since I, and other people in my current situation, get questions on this all the time…”So you’re in your residency?”...”What specialty are you in?”...”What hospital do you work for”...No, none, nowhere😂 The four years of medical school and “residency” are entirely separate entities with no residency spot being a guarantee after medical school. I had no clue how many people were uncertain of this distinction until the last few years. Hopefully that clears up the medical lingo a little bit!
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Making it even more confusing, as 4th year medical students, especially from June-November in a usual year, most time is spent traveling to different systems for “auditions”, “aways”, “sub-I’s”. Whatever you’d like to call them, they’re often interchangeable and usually more important to osteopathic students. These serve a dual purpose to gain experience in a desired specialty as well as a means for students to show skills, knowledge, and personalities to prospective residency programs they hope to apply to in the MATCH. This year COVID has severely limited the movement of students across the country.
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With all that said, in the neverending battle to acquire as much knowledge in the least amount of time, I put this on the backburner. As I said, residency is no guarantee, it’s a privilege you earn and actually the odds are intimidating in any case but even more so in competitive specialties. I decided to set any distractions aside for a bit. My hope is I’ve done the necessary things so far to have that privilege of matching come March. As I come down the final stretch and leading up to interviews, my plan is to get back to growing this into something both educational and motivational.
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Best of luck to everyone else in the same boat right now!
-Zach

04/15/2020

2 pathologies here! Both involve the patellar tendon, one pediatric, the other per a request from last week. Chances are pretty good that you or someone you know has had one of these.
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Osgood Schlatter: A “traction apophysitis” located at the tibial tubercle. In simpler terms, there’s inflammation at the point where the patellar tendon inserts onto that bump near the front/top of your tibia. It’s more common in boys than girls occurring mostly between the ages of 12-15. It’s often seen in kids of this age range participating in jumping sports, reason being this is a time of major growth for kids and the tibial tubercle is what’s called a secondary ossification center. Again, simpler terms, a spot on the body that does not become completely fused to the rest of the tibia until after the age of 18 in most cases. The patellar tendon can actually lift and fragment the secondary ossification site at the tibial tubercle like in the picture. Thankfully, this is self limiting and 90% of the time NSAIDS, RICE, and braces/straps are enough for kids to heal with no long term issues. This really bothered one of my friends growing up and he wore a strap for most of our middle and early high school basketball games. Included is a current picture he shared with me to show the discrepancy he has in his two tibial tubercles.
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Patellar Tendinitis: This differs from Osgood Schlatter in a few ways. Though this on average affects an older population, it still affects adolescents/young adults so there can be some overlap. Known as “jumper’s knee”, patellar tendinitis often affects the same type of athletes and still males more than females. So how can these be told apart? Aside from the fact that you’re not likely to have a big bump on your tibial tubercle, another feature is the location of the knee pain. Patellar tendinitis will generally cause pain at the inferior border of the patella down into the tendon body rather than at the tibial insertion point. This is generally a clinical diagnosis and much like Osgood Schlatter is treated with similar measures. Surgery is saved for phase III cases on the Blazina classification which have failed other therapies (see above).

04/08/2020

Started my pediatrics rotation this week...or I would have if not for COVID-19. That gives me time to share some interesting pediatric orthopedic content I’ve come across while studying though.
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The first topic is Legg-Calve-Perthes disease. This is an idiopathic process meaning it happens spontaneously and for reasons we’re unsure of. It causes avascular necrosis of the proximal femoral epiphysis in kids. Necrosis, meaning cell death, and the epiphysis of a bone refers to the portion that is responsible for growth. Putting those words together you can see why this poses an issue for a growing child. Also, if the specific term “avascular necrosis” sounds familiar it’s because I referenced it before when talking about avascular necrosis of the femoral head related to Tua Tagovailoa’s partial hip dislocation last Fall, check it out.
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Perthes is still being studied and depending on the resource, numbers may vary but overall it thankfully is rare. It affects 1 in 10,000 kids and the most common age at presentation is between 4 and 8. Interestingly, males are affected at a 5:1 ratio to females and Perthes has been linked to a higher incidence in urban areas among other interesting associations. Any thoughts as to why for either? (No right or wrong answers). Risk factors for Perthes include family history, low birth weight, and second hand smoke as well.
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A positive prognostic factor includes age

Zach Bernhard, DO, MBA

11/19/2023

09/04/2023

08/29/2022

11/15/2021

08/29/2021

03/15/2021

03/12/2021

03/05/2021

01/29/2021

10/02/2020

04/15/2020

04/08/2020

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