Website Introduction

"Mechanics is the branch of applied mathematics dealing with motion and forces producing motion."

Oxford Languages

Biomechanics is the study of mechanics relating to living organisms. Hence, biomechanics cannot be studied separately from mathematics.

Nevertheless, mathematics is not included in the medical and veterinary schools curriculum, and it is not even a prerequisite for admission to most medical and veterinary schools. Despite that, orthopaedic surgeons must understand mechanics to solve complex clinical problems. 

The veterinary community lacks mechanical journals for submission and publication of mechanical papers. For this reason, mechanical research is published in journals where the editorial and reviewing panel are vets. From this, it is apparent that the publication of such studies lacks the necessary scrutiny. This has resulted in the veterinary literature being saturated with erroneous statements based on studies in which the central questions lack the required mechanical foundations.

For many years, I have been looking for a source where the mathematical concepts of biomechanics could be explained to me in English so I can understand the literature without having to translate the math to the language I know. Through studying and researching for over ten years, I realised that medical professionals could not provide what I was looking for due to the lack of mathematical knowledge. Similarly, engineers do not understand what a medical professional needs to know to navigate themselves through the literature and solve clinical problems. In addition, most engineers progress to become field engineers, where they solve complex problems using software, experience, guidelines and published standards. They make things happen without having to use the "first principles" of mechanics. This is an analogue to a surgeon who can fix a problem without remembering the biochemistry and physiology they were taught at school or the need to know the advanced physiology and biochemistry a PhD student needs  for their research project.

From the above, it is not difficult to understand the difference between a study designed and written by research engineers and reviewed by an engineering panel for a biomechanical journal, and one designed and written by vets who have hired a field engineer to test a construct in a lab. An analogue would be a veterinary study designed by philosophers who have hired a vet to perform an experiment in a lab. Imagine the philosophers coming up with the main question and the concept of experimentation and then interpreting the data given to them by the vet to conclude guidelines for treating a medical condition.

Now, if you are one of those vets who like reading biomechanical papers and teaching biomechanics, and you find the above to be an over exaggeration, please be honest and ask yourselves two questions:

1. "Does my teaching feel like a logical flow from a true statement to the next or do I have to add my intuition into my narratives to fill in the logical gaps between my statements?"

2. "Do I understand what I say, or do I use statements from what I have read and repeat them after enriching them with my intuitive thoughts to make sense of what I have been told or read?"

   
   

If the answers to the first part of the above questions are "No", then this is a blog that you may find helpful. I am studying the applied mathematics necessary to translate the biomechanical literature from the mathematical to the English language. By doing that, I navigate through the current literature critically, taking no statement for granted unless it is based on a previous logical statement. I take note of a study's conclusion, but I also highlight why I may not fully believe in it.

It all starts from the "basic principles". What is a force, a vector, stress, the state of mechanical equilibrium, and how we measure an angle using a reference line? Based on these, I will explain what is the working length of an implant, the difference between the various loading conditions, the joint reaction force, the importance of the tibial plateau angle to the stability of the stifle joint, the importance (or not) of a bone's mechanical axis, the reason why the methodology of measuring bone deformities in veterinary medicine does not make sense, and most concepts that keep bothering me and may also be bothering you.

Most importantly, what you read here may inspire your next research project.

Please email me if you agree, disagree, want to discuss something, want to contribute to the website with your posts, or want to say hi. Also, keep in mind that I am also still learning. Your comments may be more valuable to me than you think.