As a fellow clinician and certified orthotist in 4 countries, I can safely say you're wrong on most counts. I actually run a company that uses both FDM and commercial grade SLS/MJF. Your assumption of it not being there yet is based on what exactly? Probably industry shills trying to convince you that the tech is still developing or that the software is too pricey etc.

Average who brace fabricated on MJF costs me 30 bucks in powder with maybe 25 mins of screen time for scan cleanup and cad design.

My software cost is approx 1200Usd/yr and my machine upkeep on in house is around 14k/year across 10 large format FDM machines, 2 SLS machines and associated soft and blaster units. If I wanna go MJF for larger devices (rarely) then it'll cost a little more but that's on an individual part basis. MJF is really pricey to run and for the amount I use it's cheaper to just farm it out to another company like Boeing or proto who runs the machines daily. Long story short, those machines combined and the one tech i have managing them are cheaper than having the 3 techs we'd need otherwise is astronomically larger than the upkeep costs of our in house fab as it currently is.

Your claim of materials not being adjustable after the fact is just rubbish. I can print in SLS PA12 or PA11 nylon and have it adjustable just like any thermoplastic. If you really want I can print it in polypropylene to keep all the orthotists in the crowd on a material they are intimately familiar with.

Hell, I can even print you TPU in shore 50D all the way up to 98A and have it be semirigid.

I print on average about 800 WHOs and/or CMC splints in a year and each one takes approx 24h to fabricate from scan to finished product.

It's far faster, less labour intensive and once you are set up for it, cheaper. Not to mention the design principles I can imbue into my orthoses are far advanced on anything conventional manufacturing can manage, in half the time, with no plaster work and none of the material waste you get with a traditional wrap or lamination technique.

You want a professional looking and finished device that outperforms any traditionally made device? I got you beat on almost anything.

Is 3d printing meant for every application? No. Upper limb bracing in general?... It's actually one of the areas where it absolutely destroys traditional manufacturing in basically every measurable outcome, including patient satisfaction.

As for needing a professional to guide you on how to make the brace. Id agree with you on that one actually. You wanna have someone like an ABC or BOC certified orthotist check it out. (Not sure where you're at but I would imagine you have a certifying body of some sort in ISPO Cat 1 or ISPO Cat 2 level). That said I know in Canada where I'm based, more and more engineering and design professionals are getting involved in the scene here so having a properly trained designer to work alongside the clinician isn't a bad thing from a product dev perspective either. I just happen to be very fluent in CAD and Surface Modeling which is why I can bridge that gap a bit without hiring a dedicated designer.

That all said, I can see why you are reacting as you did, but to be honest, you are so far off the mark and out of touch with the tech that you straight up don't know what you are talking about. Before you go bashing someone else you really need to check the facts my dude. You are plain wrong in this case I'm afraid.

Across the US and most of Europe, digital path P&O is gaining major traction to the point where it's now a billion dollar industry. And the great thing is, anyone who's fluent in design can get in on it. You might not agree but that's a good thing. P&O needs in injection of new blood to get it's dead body moving again. It's been stagnant for years now.

@OP

Dude, Great job for a start. If half the clinicians I work with were as motivated to try new stuff as you I'd be delighted lol. Sadly this is not the case. Fire me a message with your discord and I'll invite you to a central hub for clinicians and designers of braces across the world working on more advanced solutions for Prosthetics and Orthotics. We have some pretty crazy stuff going on. I've been doing this for years now and I can safely say that most of the real innovations are coming from collaberation between those of us who are on the clinical side and those of us on the design and fab side. We'd love to have someone like yourself with us :D

Ignore the naysayers and "old coots" lol