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Artificial Hip Joint using the McKee Farrar Prosthesis PG rating

Can't stand the sight of blood? - then DON'T watch this! This amazing film is of one the first ever successful hip replacements pioneered by consultants McKee and Farrar

School programme and Educational film 1966 14 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for East Anglian Film Archive

Overview

In 1966, hip replacement surgery was breaking new ground at the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital attracting worldwide interest. This film records every detail of the surgery involved to insert the ‘metal on metal’ McKee Farrar prosthesis. It would then be shown to students and surgeons to help with their training. The film shows the patient's pre-op assessment, X-rays, the intricate 'fitting' of the new steel hip and the cementing of the new parts before closing the patient up.

Hip replacement surgery has proved to be one of the most effective types of surgery in modern medical history. George Kenneth McKee joined the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital as orthopaedic surgeon in 1939 and worked to advance the development of a total hip replacement prototypes. John Watson Farrar joined him years later and they produced the pioneering McKee-Farrar prosthesis - the first widely used and successful total hip replacement from 1961. This success put Norwich Hospital on the map and attracted interest from all over the world. Watson Farrar commissioned this film to be made for teaching and it was eventually donated to the archive by a former nurse following Watson-Farrar's death in 1999