Voices for change: AO women in STEMM

AO Research Institute Davos (ARI) Senior Project Leader Manuela Ernst believes a diverse array of perspectives is essential to solving patient problems and, in turn, advancing patient care. Ernst is no stranger to problem-solving: A member of ARI’s Biomedical Development team and deputy of its Concept Development focus area, she has been a key contributor to the development of the AO Fracture Monitor, an innovative, implantable telemetric sensor system to monitor bone healing.

A native of Schwyz in central Switzerland, Ernst considers herself fortunate to be part of ARI’s passionate, diverse, and patient-centered team.

“My older brother and I come from a nonacademic background, but our parents always supported us in our education as well as our interests and activities,” Ernst said.  A natural curiosity for “how things work” and a love of skiing collided when she was 14, triggering Ernst's interest in orthopedic surgery.

“It’s almost inevitable that if you ski competitively… you will get injured at some point. An anterior cruciate ligament—ACL—injury was my first connection to traumatology. Of course, I was curious about how my injury could be fixed,” she recalled.

When her surgeon offered her the opportunity to stay awake during arthroscopic surgery to repair her ACL, her answer was an enthusiastic, “Yes!”

“This was all very interesting to me in general: from the biomechanics of the injury mechanism to the surgical techniques until the rehabilitation process,” she said. “It was—and is—amazing what medicine can achieve to get you back on track.”

Ernst chose human movement sciences as her career path and field of study at ETH Zurich. Her first brush with ARI was in 2011 when she completed her master’s degree with an internship and master’s thesis with ARI’s Biomedical Development team.