The Royal College of Surgeons has accredited this meeting for 4.5 CPD points.

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RLHOTS Committee 2018-2019

Vishvas Shetty
Moritz Lebe
David Ensor
Ravi Chekuri
Ahmed Zaghloul

Founding Members

Nima Heidari
Ali Noorani
Nic Wardle
Wei Yoon

Chairman’s Address

Dear Colleagues

Welcome to the 12th Annual Meeting of the Royal London Hospital Orthopaedic and Trauma Society and our first visit to the Crystal London, Royal Victoria Docks. Again, the committee shave sought a venue close to home, that satisfies the EUCOMED requirements, and offers value for money. It is your committee’s efforts which have brought this meeting to fruition. Their robust negotiations have generated the sponsorship which enables attendance to be free. It is only fair that we acknowledge the generosity of the sponsors and engage with them at the intervals.
As always, the delegates owe a debt of gratitude to the committee’s endeavours to assemble a prestigious faculty, which offers broad appeal with a breadth of subjects. The value of listening to diverse presentations is enlightening, and rarely fails to spark interest and thoughts of possible application in one’s own field. Sharing ideas to stimulate personal reflection will allow us to improve our standards.
Today is an academic event and an opportunity to catch up with former trainees and colleagues. It is also the time to acknowledge a turning point has been reached in academic orthopaedics at Barts Health. In 1992, T&O at RLH, had two university funded part-time clinical academics. A third arrived when Barts and RLH were merged. With each retirement the school removed its funding. In 2015, Mr Akhtar was appointed as a Senior Clinical Academic Lecturer, with an educational remit.
In the absence of a formal structure, publication and research has continued with a strong portfolio of local and national projects. This effort has largely fallen under the stewardship of Mr Ramachandran, with individual consultants and researchers winning large grants for substantial investigations. It has been a privilege to observe the enthusiasm shown by the current team of consultants to return East London Orthopaedics to the place it deserves, at the academic top table. It is an honour to reveal that the recent presentation to the Special Trustees, spearheaded by Mr Ramachandran and supported by colleagues, at which achievements to date were highlighted and aspirations for the future were outlined, met with success. The sum of £2.9 million has been granted to establish a Chair of Orthopaedics, with a fully supported team, and funds to sustain academic development for three-years, while it becomes self-sufficient. It is no exaggeration to state this is an immense achievement. It will offer trainees an extraordinary opportunity for education and research. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that this chance is not squandered.  Three cheers and well done.

Professor Gareth Scott
Chairman, RLHOTS

Programme Director’s Report

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you all to the 12th RLHOTS Annual Academic Meeting. The committee have worked very hard to bring together what should prove an excellent day (and evening!)
I would like to thank Ravi Chekuri, David Ensor, Moritz Lebe, Vish Shetty and Ahmed Zaghloul for their efforts in coming together as a team and making it happen.
Today’s venue, the Crystal, is an exciting and progressive venue. It uses solar power and ground source heat pumps to generate its own energy and sets the global benchmark for sustainable building design. It is the only building in the world to achieve the highest certifications for sustainable design and construction.
This modern and leading-edge setting is an apt location for us today as it is matched by the dynamism, vibrancy and energy of the Royal London rotation. More than 70% of our current trainees are in the first 3 years of their training and I am 18 months in to my appointment as the Training Programme Director.
This is very exciting time to be part of the Royal London rotation; it gives us the opportunity to further develop and mould the rotation as we all progress.
We had 5 new ST3s joining the rotation last year in Zaghloul Ahmed, David Ensor, Moritz Lebe, Vish Shetty and Jason Wong. We look forward to getting to you know all further over the next 6 years.
Sarah Stewart is currently out of programme undertaking research at Imperial College. Our colleagues Pete Bates, Jamila Kassam, Steve Millington and Manoj Ramachandran have been extremely successful in securing funding for a university Chair in Orthopaedics and two new Senior Lecturers. We are grateful to them for all their efforts and look forward to new research opportunities for our students to pursue “in-house” in future, as our clinical research build further on the already impressive achievements of our research team.
It is also important to recognise our senior trainees as they achieve major milestones and prepare for pastures anew:

  • Congratulations to Neil Chotai on the birth of his son Kiaan.
  • Ishi Grewal achieved his CCT and is due to go on a trauma fellowship to Dallas.
  • lbraheim El-Daly was also awarded CCT and is currently undertaking a fellowship in lower limb arthroplasty, pelvic and acetabular trauma in Paris.
  • Congratulations to Chetan Jayadev on his appointment as a substantive lower limb consultant at Stanmore.
  • Best of luck to Sirat Khan and Sen Raja who will be off to undertake upper limb fellowships in Canada and Australia.
  • Wonderful news that Sarah McMahon has been appointed as a substantive consultant in Paediatric Trauma and Orthopaedics at the Royal Free.
  • Emeka Oragui was awarded CCT since RLHOTS 11 and is currently on a lower limb arthroplasty fellowship in Sydney with his young family.
  • Asif Parkar is having a great time on fellowship in Canada and we are grateful to him in bringing Dr James Powell to join us today.
  • Natasha Picardo achieved CCT and is due to commence a hand fellowship in Birmingham pending baby number 2.
  • Jagwant Singh has been appointed as a substantive upper limb consultant at Lewisham following his fellowship at Wrightington and visiting fellowships to Mayo Clinic and others.
  • Finally, congratulations to Sulaiman Alazzawi and John Stammers on their appointments as locum consultants at St. George’s Hospital.

It is great to see people coming ‘off the top’ and achieving further successes and will only serve to give our more junior trainees inspiration and targets.
I am grateful to all the wonderful trainers throughout the region who continue to make this the greatest training programme in the country. It is thanks to all your time, dedication and skill that we continue to rank so high at National Selection and continue to attract the highest calibre of trainees.
I would like to express the gratitude of everyone on the rotation to our distinguished faculty and speakers today as we look forward to engaging and educational talks.
Thank you to all the attendees today for taking time away from your practice to come and support the meeting and look forward to catching up with old friends, as well as making new relationships. I anticipate a stimulating day and a fantastic dinner tonight. I hope that you will all continue to support the Royal London Rotation and to attend all future RLHOTS meetings.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife and children for their understanding and support that allows me to dedicate my time and efforts to the rotation.

Onwards and upwards!
Kash Akhtar

Invited speakers