Dr Jagadish Thapa's Experience

HExN Travel Fellowship in Spine 2024, May- June 2024

As a spine fellow (2022 – 2024), I got an opportunity to explore more into the spine through the HExN travel fellowship at The Royal Orthopedic Hospital (ROH), Birmingham, UK.

During this period, the hospital approved me as a visiting spine fellow under mentorship of Dr. Morgan Jones. My other deformity mentors Dr. Mehta, Dr. Sewell, Dr. Mckay were very concerned with my learning in the ROH. Besides this they gave me opportunity to visit and scrub in cases at the Birmingham Children’s Hospital (BCH), where I could learn a lot about adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, neuro muscular scoliosis, syndromic children with scoliosis.

I am thankful to all spine consultants, operation theater team and all supporting staffs who helped in all possible way to make my stay comfortable and learning as great as it could be.

I am grateful to my mentors as they allowed me to visit deformity clinics with them and discuss pre-operative planning of the cases and see various follow up cases of spine that were operated before. I am thankful to the spine registrars and spine fellows who helped me get acquainted with the ecosystem and working dynamic of spine team in the ROH. I was able to do ward rounds with them where I could see the postoperative patients and their progression of improvement.

The Multi-Disciplinary Meet (MDT) on every Monday was an eye-opening experience which I hope to implement back home in Nepal. In a nutshell I would say my experience as “travelling with learning and building connections”.

I really appreciate how the HExN team is making its contribution to Nepal in the field of health and education. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Prof. Satyan Rajbhandari and the HExN team for providing me a better learning experience and support during my stay in UK.