According to the Vail Daily, a condominium association in the upscale Colorado town has said no to body parts being used for surgical training in their building.
* The Vail Gateway Plaza Condominium Association received a temporary restraining order against the sports medicine company Arthrex that prevents the company from building a "wet lab" in the Gateway Plaza Building, Vail Daily reported. The company had received a building permit to renovate a former OB/GYN office into a center where surgeons would train, using purified body parts.
* Arthrex's attorney, Eric Jonsen, argues that, in addition to an OB/GYN, ear, nose and throat doctors have also occupied the space and that the company's intended use is in line with how the space has historically been used.
* According to Vail Daily, Vail explained to condo owners that the lab would use only joints -- not full cadavers -- and that body parts would remain frozen until used. The parts would be refrozen in disposal bags, picked up by a specialty company and incinerated offsite when surgeons were through with them. Arthrex, which has facilities around the world, has never had an odor complaint at any of their offices, Vail Daily reported.
* Arthrex, with 25 years experience, states its mission is to "combine the finest quality engineered products with a comprehensive program of education and support services to meet the needs of the orthopedist and patient." The company says it offers courses in arthroscopy of the knee, shoulder and hip, as well as foot & ankle and hand & wrist. The locations of its training centers are listed as Naples, Fla.; Los Angeles; Scottsdale, Ariz.; New York; and Vail.
* Steadman Philippon Research Institute does similar work at the Vail Valley Medical Center, with a surgical skills lab that features ten arthroscopic wetlab stations, fully equipped arthroscopic video towers, cadaver freezers, audio video capabilities and conference rooms.
* According to the website VailCondoExperts, the nine condominiums at the four-story Vail Gateway Plaza range in size from 298 to 4,694 square feet. Built in 1990, the condos have garage parking and boast walking-distance proximity to the slopes. A condo at the plaza runs about $5,650,000.
* With 5,000 full-time residents and about the same amount of part-time residents, Vail is 100 miles west of Denver. At an elevation of 8,150 feet, the town receives more than 335 inches of snow and almost 300 days of sunshine each year.
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