About BOSTAA

The objectives of the Association are to provide a forum for the presentation of basic research, advances in clinical practice and the results of surgical procedures pertaining to orthopaedic sports trauma and to improve the care offered by orthopaedic surgeons to the victims of injuries sustained during sport. The techniques of arthroscopic surgery and ACL reconstruction became popular during the 1980s, a period when many team doctors were senior consultants in general surgery or other non-orthopaedic specialties. Elite athletes were still being treated by the old techniques, including open meniscectomy for chronic ACL rupture, while at the other extreme able and experienced therapists with doubtful qualifications were managing surgically correctible lesions conservatively.

The Association was born from a handful of orthopaedic surgeons with experience of new techniques who felt that professional athletes deserved to be treated at least as well as the rest of the population and hence a need to focus in on the proper management of orthopaedic injuries in athletes within the United Kingdom. The name, the British Orthopaedic Sports Trauma Association, was carefully chosen to avoid encroaching on the interests of other groups. Once established, BOSTA was accepted as a specialist society by the BOA and has acted as a catalyst to raise the profile of sports injuries within British orthopaedics.

In September 2010 BOSTA changed its name to BOSTAA (British Orthopaedic Sports Trauma and Arthroscopy Association) to reflect the growing influence of arthroscopy in sports injuries.