Joining us for an observership
Dr Tushar Nayak is joining the clinic for an observership this month, to learn alongside the team in Australia.
About Dr Nayak
Dr Nayak is an orthopaedic surgeon with nearly eight years in practice. He trained at AIIMS New Delhi and has completed international fellowships in arthroplasty and sports medicine. He currently practises in Bangalore, with a focus on shoulder arthroplasty, arthroscopy, complex trauma and pelvi-acetabular surgery.
Several of those terms describe quite distinct kinds of work. Shoulder arthroplasty is replacement of the worn surfaces of the shoulder joint with implants. Arthroscopy is keyhole surgery, in which a camera and fine instruments are passed into the joint through small portals rather than through an open incision, and it is how most rotator cuff and instability work is now carried out. Complex trauma means the management of difficult fractures, often involving several bones or a joint surface. Pelvi-acetabular surgery is the repair of fractures of the pelvis and of the hip socket, a demanding area of trauma practice in its own right. Individual results vary.
Observerships
An observership differs from a fellowship: the visiting surgeon observes rather than operates, usually over a shorter period, and is generally already established in practice. The purpose is to see how a particular unit approaches its cases rather than to acquire basic training.
Surgeons travel for this because operative technique is difficult to transmit in writing. A published paper can describe a series of patients and report how they fared, but the sequence of steps, the positioning, the choice of instruments and the decisions taken when the anatomy is not as expected are learned by watching them done repeatedly. Seeing a unit's clinics and ward rounds as well as its operating lists also shows how patients are selected and followed up afterwards, which is often the part that determines the result.
It has been a pleasure working with him.
Related information
- Our shoulder surgery page
- Our shoulder fellowship page
- Our post on another visiting surgeon, Dr Janak Mehta