Jason Webb – Rothman Ranawat Travelling Fellowship adventure
Earlier this year a group of aspiring surgeons travelled to some of the top orthopaedic centres in the USA as part of the Rothman-Ranawat Travelling Fellowship. Jason Webb talks to OPN about experience.
Six weeks, 15 flights and 11 hotels later, the lives of four young aspiring orthopaedic surgeons changed forever. In March 2015, I set out alongside Eoin Sheehan from Ireland, Daniel Oakes from Los Angeles and Brian Curtin from Charlotte, North Carolina, on a journey that would begin at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, before taking in 10 of the best total joint centres around the United States and Canada.
Arranged under the auspices of the Hip Society’s 2015 Rothman-Ranawat Travelling Fellowship, our trip promised to be an inspirational tour of state-of-the-art facilities offering exemplary surgical care of the hip joint throughout North America, and would include personal interactions with some of the world’s most prominent specialists in adult joint reconstruction, as well as scientific conferences, surgical observations, and much more.
After leaving the neon excesses of Las Vegas, we headed west to San Francisco then criss-crossed our way across the USA visiting, among others, Pasadena, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and Boston, before heading up into Canada to conclude our trip.
Highlights
The Fellowship proper began at Stanford University in San Francisco, where we were hosted by Bill Maloney and colleagues. We observed complex hip surgeries in the operating rooms of the university hospital and this was followed by lively interactive grand rounds with residents and fellows. We were also treated to the first of many excellent steak dinners, and enjoyed interesting debate on various facets of arthroplasty surgery.
Keck Medical Centre is part of the University of Southern California and is nestled in the leafy suburbs of Pasadena. Here we were treated royally as guests of ‘the great man from Iowa’ Larry Dorr, and got to observe Paul Gilbert and Larry Dorr demonstrating a master class in robotic arthroplasty surgery. Jay Lieberman hosted an interactive and stimulating academic session where we discussed many of the current issues facing arthroplasty practice, and we were joined by Dr Ebramzadeh who enlightened us on modern biomechanics.
A red-eye flight took us across to the east coast, and Philadelphia, where we were immediately immersed in the efficiencies of the Rothman Institute in the operating rooms of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. And thence to New York City and the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), where we were given open access to all the arthroplasty cases for the day and participated in full and educational grand rounds with all the residents and fellows the following morning. The scientific research at HSS was impressive and under the guidance of Timothy Wright we were shown all the simulator and retrieval work currently ongoing, as well as being treated to a ‘tour-de-force of MRI and Mavric sequencing’ by Holles Potter.
In New Albany, Ohio, we witnessed a variety of direct anterior approaches as well as revisions, conversions and difficult primaries, and then at the Anderson Clinic in Alexandria, Virginia, we were given a tour of the implant retrieval laboratory and participated in an academic conference where the Anderson Clinic and their neighbours presented papers on subjects including ‘day case’ hip arthroplasty.
Next to the windy city and we were given further opportunities to observe the work of top surgeons – in this case Della Valle, Berger and Rosenburg – at Rush University. On our second day in Chicago there was a faculty conference that included discussions on the treatment of periprosthetic joint infection and metal ion monitoring. At OrthoCarolina, in Charlotte, NC, we experienced southern hospitality at its best and saw the benefits of working in a unit where team-working has been perfected.
There was no slowing in our pace as our tour drew to a conclusion with a visit to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston that can only be described as an educational revelation – including an academic conference and tour of the university department, all hosted by Drs Rubash and Harris – before we headed to the London Health Sciences Center in the Canadian province of Ontario to conclude the fellowship with two fascinating days of clinical activity followed by observation of revision hip cases selected for our visit.
Reflections
We each headed out with individual goals and hopes for what we gain from participating in the Rothman-Ranawat Travelling Fellowship, and as the tour progressed