I was selected to be a part of the ISKSAA Birmingham patellofemoral travelling fellowship in 2024 from September to October and am extremely grateful to Dr Pushpinder Bajaj, Dr Lalit Maini and the other members of ISKSAA for giving me an opportunity to be a part of this amazing experience.

We were three candidates from different parts of India, all working in different scenarios and settings and facing our own sets of challenges, and that really added up to my experience and knowledge of practical day to day issues that I faced in my practice. We were under a rotation of 4 hospitals, which included The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital (one of the largest elective Orthopaedic Surgery centre in the UK), the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (the largest Trauma centre in the UK, and the largest OT complex in Europe), Good Hope Hospital and Heartlands Hospital, all located in Birmingham.

Our prime focus for the fellowship was patellofemoral pathologies, under our mentor Mr Tanveer Ashraf, who is an epitome on the knowledge and research on the subject. I saw a wide spectrum of patellofemoral procedures including Trochleoplasty, Tibial Tubercle Osteotomies, arthroscopic patella facetectomy, multiligamentous knee injuries, posterolateral corner reconstructions, arthroplasty and revision arthroplasty procedures, under Mr Ashraf and his team of consultants.

It was truly an enriching experience, Mr Tanweer Ashraf, Mr Tarek Boutafnouchet, Mr Tamer Sweed and Mr Omar Alanie left no stone unturned to make our two week fellowship the most knowledgeable and fun filled experience for us, teaching us a wide spectrum of knee procedures and also helping us out with the theoretical knowledge of complex topics by holding discussions and lectures on topics such as patella dislocations, complex osteotomy and alignment procedures and complex trauma around the knee. We were taught right from the basics of theory, clinical examination, imaging, planning and execution of the planned procedure and it’s post-op protocol.

Overall I am thankful to ISKSAA for giving me a wonderful opportunity to learn so much in so little time, it was a very helpful and enriching journey, with so much to take back into my practice and taking it up a notch. I highly recommend people to opt for this fellowship if they are interested in knee surgeries.