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Mark Paterson Travelling Fellowship: the 2014 report
Supported by BJJ and EFORT
Getting to the United Kingdom and visiting leading hospitals in the health care system had been a journey from tradition to the advances of the scientific community.
The three of us, Alberto Di Martino from Rome, Egemen Altan from Turkey and Michal Skowronek from Poland, represented an interesting mix of experiences from a cultural and professional point of view. We also had different surgical interests: Alberto is involved in Spine and Tumors, Egemen in Sports Medicine and Upper Limb surgery, and Michal in Hip Surgery and Trauma.
The fellowship is named for Mr Mark Paterson, a well-known U.K. children’s orthopaedic surgeon, who died in 2013 at the age of 59. He was an Associate Editor and Member of Council of The Bone & Joint Journal (BJJ), and President of the Orthopaedic Section of the Royal Society of Medicine. The BJJ Council and EFORT renamed the previously known BJJ-EFORT Travelling Fellowship to honor Mr. Paterson, and hope to inspire young orthopaedic surgeons.
The trip consisted of visiting the hospitals and health care centers in London, Stanmore, Nottingham and Edinburgh.
On the first day, we went to Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. We visited the London Implant Retrieval Centre, founded to collect and analyze failed (retrieved) implants from around the world to provide important insights into the in situ performance of orthopaedic devices and to provide critical clues into mechanisms of failure and success. The next day, we visited the Royal College of Surgeons of England in London. We had a private visit to the Hunterian Museum where we discovered the unusual life of John Hunter and his anatomic and surgical works, which influenced future surgical, medical and dental science.
Then we had a meeting at the BJJ building with Prof. Fares Haddad, Editor-in-Chief; Ms. Emma Vodden, Head of Editorial Publishing Services, also organizer of the U.K. tour; and with Mr. James Scott, Editor Emeritus. We heard information about the history of the journal, the changes BJJ experienced in the last few years, and the challenges the journal will face in the future.
Later that day, Haddad invited us to a conference at the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health.
In Nottingham, we were hosted by Mr. Ben Ollivere, Associate Professor in trauma, Editor-in-Chief of Bone & Joint 360 and Editorial Secretary of the British Orthopaedic Association. We visited both the Nottingham City Hospital, and the Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology at the Queen’s Medical Centre, which is one of the leading trauma centers in Europe and serves a population of over 4 million individuals who receive emergency trauma care in the Midlands. We had explanations about the development of the new trauma network in the U.K. In Edinburgh we were hosted by Prof. Hamish Simpson at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. The interest in genuine research and evidence-based surgery characterized our visit to Edinburgh.
We ended the fellowship trip by attending the 15th EFORT Congress in London — a combined programme in partnership with the BOA. Each one of us attended the special sessions with much interest. During this event, we also had the opportunity to meet colleagues from all over Europe. It gave us the chance to observe changes in progress in the U.K. health care system, to exchange ideas, share experiences, and above all to make new long-lasting friendships according to the spirit of EFORT, to which we gratefully and respectfully give our thanks.
- Alberto Di Martino
Department of Orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery, University Campus Bio-Medico of Rome - Egemen Altan
Department of Orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery, Selcuk University Medical Faculty, Konya, Turkey - Michal Skowronek
Department of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, Zeromski Hospital, in Krakow, Poland
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