It all started with a nervous day of fellowship interviews at ISKSAA meet, New Delhi. I am glad that I was selected as a worthy candidate for the international fellowship at Israel and I am extremely grateful to Dr Pushpinder Singh Bajaj, Dr Lalit Maini and ISKSAA team for their trust in my candidature for the fellowship selection. Upon getting selected, I was allowed to correspond directly with my mentor, Prof Eran Maman with whose help and inputs, I planned my travel and stay.

What happened in the next couple of weeks would definitely be a turning point in the history of my life. The way I perceive about myself and the orthopaedic world would completely upgrade following this unique exposure. Travel and stay were not an issue. I took a direct flight from New Delhi and stayed at an Airbnb nearby to the hospital locality. Tel Aviv is definitely one of the expensive cities in the world, but, trust me this will not burn a big hole in your wallet as much as you scare. Tel Aviv, surely, is one of the lively and awesome places in the world with great people. Most of its streets are thronged by other tourists form every part of the world.

Prof Eran Maman is a true gentleman, a great mentor and of course, a surgeon par excellence. He ensured that the discussions are held in English for me to understand. Otherwise, he would stand right behind my chair in the meeting and translate for me. It’s not every day you find the head of the department becoming your personal translator. I felt very respected and secure with his entire team of surgeons and paramedics. Almost every other Israeli I met has been to India. Their face would light up and ask where I am coming from in India. The secretary, Erica Penn, deserves a special mention. She is an amazing person. She walked along with me through this huge-sized hospital to get my things in order. She even insisted and handed me her travel card to use for travel while in Israel. She kept saying, “now you are one among us and it’s our duty to take care of you”, “wherever you get lost, in the hospital or otherwise, drop a text”. She gave me accurate instructions and tips for my travel and shopping. I have met few awesome people like her before.

We had three ORs in week and two days of clinical activity including academic meetings, journal club and audits. The sessions were greatly enjoyable. I was included well in the discussions and they took my opinion too in their multi-faculty pre-op discussions with patients. In the ORs I was exposed to the spectrum of shoulder surgeries including labral repair, cuff repairs, reverse shoulder replacement, trauma around shoulder, Latarjet procedure and subacromial decompression. During my free time, I could attend other speciality ORs including hand surgery, foot and ankle, sports surgery, etc. These consultants were more than welcoming and actually had a good interaction with them also in the OR which was greatly insightful.

During my stay in Israel in the first week of May, Gaza had launched as many as 800 rockets towards Israel with many reaching as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. But with the Iron Dome, I didn’t feel a thing. Things were as usual. People at the hospital as well as my Airbnb host took extra care to allay my concerns about the occasional sirens. It is definitely one the safest places to be even during an ongoing conflict. From the Mediterranean beach, tourists were spotting the interception of missiles like fire-works display!!

Tel Aviv is not just all business. Fridays and Saturdays were off-working and I also explored several places including a challenging trek to Masada plateau for sunrise, floating for hours in the dead sea, a cultural trip to Jerusalem with loads of shopping at the Old City market and of course trip to Jaffa, famous for its oranges, the sweetest ones I have tasted so far. The night-life of Tel Aviv is so vibrant, one should not miss. Thursdays are “white-nights” when the entire city becomes groovy and party till daylight. Over-all, it was a right mix of professional, travelling, leisure, fun and adventurous experience of two weeks for me. I than ISKSAA for this opportunity.