You're looking at the most alarming data you've never seen.

The 2025 Safety Science meta-analysis pooled 31 studies and found that healthcare workers who wear lead aprons face nearly 4× the risk of musculoskeletal injury. The 2023 SCAI survey found that 6 out of 10 cath lab workers have already sustained an orthopedic injury. A 2025 BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders study reported that up to 82% of physicians with regular lead exposure live with musculoskeletal pain.

Here's the problem: the authors of that meta-analysis openly admit the evidence base is weak. Samples are small. Studies focus on cardiologists and ignore the techs, nurses, sonographers, fellows, and surgical staff standing in the same rooms. And almost none of them capture the variables that actually matter:

• How many hours in lead, per day, per week, per year?

• For how many cumulative years?

• One-piece apron or two-piece?

• How much weight is bearing on your shoulders and back?

• How often are you bent forward while in lead — the forward-lever effect that multiplies strain on your spine?

No one has asked everyone. Until now.

This is the first global survey designed to answer those questions. It takes about 6 minutes. Your responses are anonymous. The survey opens at HRS 2026 in Chicago, where we will be interviewing providers on the conference floor. Results will stream live at www.myorthovest.com so you — and everyone — can watch, in real time, what colleagues around the world are reporting. When the survey closes, we will publish the full findings openly.

Thank you for helping us change what we know.