ISKSAA IMRI TRAVELLING FELLOWSHIP

With utmost gratefulness, I would like to thank the whole ISKSAA team mainly Dr. Lalit Maini, Dr. Pushpinder Bajaj, Dr. IPS Oberoi, Dr. Jegan Krishnan for providing me the opportunity to undertake the ISKSAA-IMRI fellowship 2015at Flinders Medical center in Adelaide, Australia. The whole process, right from the selection process to the culmination of the fellowship has been fully streamlined.

As we reached Adelaide, we were received at the airport by the IMRI CEO Mr. Nicholas Kerrison who took us to our gorgeous, spacious, fully furnished accommodation in the Adelaide Hills and explained us about the schedule to follow. We were met in the morning by Mr. Daniel Cullen, who had been our liaison at IMRI sending information regarding the fellowship for the past 2-3 months and who would be our local guardian during our stay.

I was lucky to have Dr. Chetan and Dr. Nataraj as my co-fellows. Since both of them had more clinical experience, my understanding process of the various surgeries that we observed was really simplified. The whole month that we spent together was an experience from the start including the weekend trips, shopping expeditions for buying souvenirs, touristy places that we visited, the off beaten city exploring in Sydney & Adelaide, the various different dishes we would sometimes prepare at our place of residence.

The fellowship couldn’t have been better organized in the terms of the quality and quantity of the various surgeries that we got to witness. We were lucky to get a chance to observe Dr. Jegan Krishnan,Dr. Marc Inglis, Dr. Mario Penta, Dr. Chris Wilson, Dr. Matt Liptak, Dr. David Worsley, Dr. Meng Ling, and Dr. Jason Ward, who all are experts in their subspecialties. We saw a wide gamut ofhip, knee and shoulder surgeries including navigated replacements, revision surgeries, reverse shoulder replacements and arthroscopies. The bagful of tips and tricks that we noted were really clever and innovative and are bound to find a place in my practice. All the surgeons were really helpful and made sure that we understood and clarified all our doubts in detail.

The extremely well designed OT setup, accurate documentation, faster changeover between surgeries, TraumaCad planning were some of the things that every surgeon would wish to emulate. Anterior approach to hip for replacement, hip arthroscopy, 3D reconstruction based acetabular component were few of the main highlights that we were getting exposed to for the first time. Several newer concepts like use of continuous local infiltration analgesia (CLIA) for knee replacements and shoulder surgeries.

The almost fatherly care provided by Dr. Jegan Krishnan during our fellowship cannot be acknowledged just in a few words. He organized a beautiful welcome dinner for us on the second day of the fellowship even though he had come from a long journey that same day. He even organized a visit to the famous Adelaide Oval for a match of Australian-rules football and made sure to buy us an Adelaide Crows jersey as a souvenir. He also made sure that we get a taste of the academic proceedings in Australia. He prearranged for us to go on a visit to the state chapter meeting of the Australian Orthopaedic Association. An academic component was also incorporated into the fellowship involving development of a systematic review protocol.

A big thanks to the whole of IMRI team especially Mr. Nick Kerrison, Mr. Daniel Cullen and Ms. Annika Theodolou for taking care of us and helping us out.

With sincere thanks,
Dr. Abhishek Kumar Sambharia
Consultant
Clifton springs Hospital.