ISKSAA WRIGHTINGTON TRAVELLING FELLOWSHIPS 2015 REPORT
At the outset we would like to profoundly thank Dr Lalit Maini, Dr Pushpinder Bajaj and the entire team of ISKSAA for giving us the opportunity to travel to Wrightington Hospital, United Kingdom for our upper limb travelling fellowship. Wrightington Hospital is considered the ‘Mecca’ of orthopaedics and it is every orthopod’s dream to work there. Thanks to ISKSAA team we had our dream come true in the month of May 2016. We were there in the UK for 3 weeks from 2nd to 22nd May 2016.
We landed in Manchester and were warmly greeted by the cold UK weather [a welcome change from the Indian summer]. We went to the hospital and were well accommodated in the upper limb unit. The upper limb unit at Writington Hospital is extremely active and dynamic. They perform up to 15-20 cases per day across 3 theatres. They also have one of the most equipped physio departments. We had the opportunity to with arthroplasty, arthroscopy and other surgeries of shoulder, elbow, hand and wrist. At Wrightington they do all the surgeries given in the book and plenty outside it as well. We had the chance to see great surgeons like Prof Lennard Funk, Prof Adam Watts, Prof Trail, Prof Raj Murali, Dr Krishna Swamy. We regularly partipated in the North West UK meetings held every Tuesday. There was plenty for us to pick up from these great men when we attended their clinics also. Learnt a lot from the way they examine patients, come to a diagnosis and decide on the treatment.
By the end of the day, every day we would be overwhelmed by the academic overexposure at Wrightington. To cool it down there was always someone or the other to take us out for a pint of beer in the evening. We were made aware of all the local delicacies and beers by our hosts.[Special mention has to be made of Stella Artois and Cobra {The last one thanks to Prof Raj Murali}]. We got to visit London one weekend and thanks to Prof Funk we got to see a football match between Manchester United and Bournemouth at Man U's home ground, Old Trafford.
Overall ISKSAA Wrightington travelling fellowship was a wonderful experience both professionally and personally. I guess we came back much better surgeon than when we had left for Wrightington.
