Yorkshire Knee Clinic surgeons have been hosting four young consultants on a European Knee Society Travelling Fellowship. YKC’s Nick London explains the value of travel for consultants eager to learn their craft.

You might imagine that, wherever you choose to have your knee surgery, your experience – and the experience of the surgeon – will be broadly similar. In truth, orthopaedics, like every other area of clinical practice, has its centres of excellence. These are where patients can expect the very highest level of clinical practice – and where young consultants can expect to learn from the most experienced surgeons conducting gold standard procedures.

As these centres of excellence are spread across the globe, if a consultant wants exposure to a breadth of expertise, they need to travel.

That is the purpose of the European Knee Society’s (EKS) Travelling Fellowship.

The EKS Travelling Fellowship

The Fellowship aims to enhance the skills and knowledge of young orthopaedic surgeons interested in knee replacement/resurfacing surgery. Each year, the EKS (which, for more than a decade, has united leading European experts in the fields of degenerative knee conditions and knee replacement) selects up to four fellows who then have the opportunity to visit high-level European teaching centres, exploring all aspects of degenerative knee surgery.

In early September, myself, my YKC colleague Dave Duffy, and leading orthopaedic surgeons Damian Bull and Mark Farndon, welcomed consultants Claudia Arias, Giancarlo Giurazza, Pietro Gregori and Liam Yapp to Harrogate for the latest stage of what will, by the time their trip is complete, be a near month-long tour of some of Europe’s most renowned orthopaedic centres.

Here, the young consultants took part in a mix of surgical observations and educational discussions. Teaching included medial and lateral fixed-bearing partial knee case studies and patello-femoral resurfacing (including Quadsense PFJ load sensor technology).

The group also made presentations on their experiences of non-patella resurfacing options in Lima, Peru, revision total knee replacement in Edinburgh, and kinematic total knee replacement in Rome.

And since it would be a tragedy to visit North Yorkshire and not step beyond the operating theatre, the consultants also got to explore some local landscapes and cuisine.

Next, the quartet headed to Italy for the second stop on their tour.

Europe boasts numerous outstanding centres of excellence and competition to be a host centre is always fierce, so we are very proud to have been selected. The group was essentially treated to a mini-Harrogate Partial Knee Meeting experience, our annual conference of practical decision-making and contemporary knee-replacement practice.

We very much hope they found it a valuable learning experience.