ISKSAA BASK FELLOWSHIP IN DURHAM (MARCH 7 TO MARCH 21, 2015)

It is indeed a pleasure for me to share with you my experience of my recent visit to UK for BASK fellowship in knee arthroplasty and arthroscopy.

It was an exhilarating experience not only in terms of enhancing my knowledge about latest techniques but also I got a chance to rub shoulders with eminent personalities who have been setting the protocols to be followed world over.

My fellowship period was small but the schedule was power packed. Dr. SanjeevAnand, our course coordinator was immensely helpful. I was joined by another fellow from India. Our accomodation was arranged in Hartlepool University Hospital. The next day Dr. Sanjeev took us to BASK conference in Telford. Almost all presentations in the conference were by trainee doctors. After 2 days of conference, we travelled to Wirral by train where we met BASK president Dr. Richard Parkinson. Interaction with him was very educative. In Wirral we attended Clatterbridgehospital. Senior knee surgeon Dr. Harvey showed us knee replacements, scopies and ACL reconstructions. He taught us minute details about his techniques. Next day we returned to Hartlepool University hospital accomodation. We got the opportunity to attend a private hospital called Nuffields. There we got to meet Dr Antony Nargol. He is a world renowned authority in metal on metal hip arthroplasty. He described about the limitations & pitfalls in these implant designs which led to their withdrawal. We were quite amazed by his deep understanding of the subject. Apart from hip, we saw plenty of unicondylar knee replacements.

After two days of surgical exposure at Nuffields we were to attend OTs at North Tees hospital. There I got to see Dr. Chandra Bhatia, spine surgeon. I witnessed his expertise in surgeries like PLIF, decompressions, cervical disc replacements and various injection techniques in spine practice. This exposure to spine instrumentation is definitely going to help me in my practice.

Rest of the remaining days we were shuttling between North Tees and HartlepoolHospitals. Dr. Sanjeev got us operative list of both places. The choice was with us. We could attend whichever theatre we wished. Apart from Arthroplasty we got good exposure of shoulder and hip arthroscopy.

This fellowship has been a wonderful experience and I can say it has definitely helped to widen my horizon in clinical practice.

Dr. Surender Singh Rawat
Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, New Delhi.