ISKSAA - Columbia Fellowship Report

I had a very pleasant experience during my fellowship at University of Missouri in Columbia, MO, USA. First of all I would like to thank Dr Pushpinder Singh Baja, Dr Lalit Maini, Dr Ajay Aggarwal and other faculty memebers who have collaborated to organize such wonderful fellowship experience

Dr Ajay Aggarwal (our fellowship director) is the Director of Hip Preservation and Senior Joint Replacement Surgeon at the University of Missouri. He is an awesome person and a very talented surgeon. He was very comforting right from our first email conversation. It was very thoughtful of him to ask us what we wished to see during the fellowship so that he can make changes in his schedule accordingly. His administrative staff was very efficient in getting our documents done in time.

We spent 4 weeks there in April 2015. Our stay was organized at a very nice hotel near the University Campus and often times we were picked up and dropped by one of the support staff or by Dr Aggarwal himself. He was very particular that we were comfortable throughout our stay both in the hospital and outside. He often took us out for dinner, drinks and even a few golf sessions in the evening after work.

In terms of the clinical experience we saw a number of cases of Femoroacetabular impingement and Hip Dyplasia in the clinic and their management by Hip Arthroscopy, Surgical Dislocation and Periacetabular osteotomy. Besides we also got to see a number of Primary and Revision Arthroplasty cases. He also organized a cadaveric workshop and arthroscopy models for us to work on to build up our skills in Hip Arthroscopy. He also offered us to observe his collegues if we wanted to. They are a group of great surgeons and were very accommodating to us. Besides Hip Preservation and loads of primary and revision arthroplasty, they also do cartilage and meniscal allograft transplant and cruciate preserving knee arthroplasty.

Overall it was a great experience and I would recommend this fellowship to anybody who wishes to pursue Hip Preservation. I will strongly recommend that whosoever aspires for this fellowship or any other should be having a practice where he can apply the skills that he gains in the fellowship to take the maximum advantage of the fellowship. One must understand that Hip Preservation has a steep learning curve and one must apply the knowledge he gains in the fellowship to make the most of his fellowship experience.

If you guys have any questions, please feel free to contact me at drashishtaneja@gmail.com

Dr. Ashish Taneja