Making the Milwaukee brace

It’s tough being a medical dinosaur.

I will always remember the after-dinner conversation when my brother revealed that scoliosis surgical patients were no longer casted post-op. Less than 10 years had passed since my own surgery in 1978 (I’d worn a body cast for eight months afterward), and I can still recall the feeling of betrayal and envy in response to this news. If only…

Yet, while some things change, others remain remarkably the same.

Recently, I found this video chronicling how the Milwaukee brace is made today. The process bears a striking similarity to how my brace was created more than 35 years ago. One glaring omission “then” was any effort to make the brace visually appealing. Other than that, the process is relatively unchanged.