Dr. Ashok Gavaskar, 2014 AAOS International Scholarship recipient

It was a delight to hear that I have been awarded the AAOS - SICOT International Scholarship for the year 2014. It felt great to see the welcome note in your name on stepping into the Academy building.

The meeting with the AAOS officials was spot on time and we had a presentation followed by an excellent discussion on the perspectives of an international trainee from Afro-Asian countries and how AAOS can progressively support their endeavors to obtain specialty training. It was an honor to go around the academy, which has paid rich tributes to their scions with exhibits of their achievements and contributions to the development of orthopedics in the country and worldwide.

I attended the course on shoulder arthroplasty at the OLC the next two days. The entire faculty team was so friendly and interactive that they put me entirely at ease during the course. The content was great and the course was conceived so brilliantly. I tried my hands at the cadavers under the able guidance of senior pros, and benefitted immensely. My special thanks to the course directors Bradley Edwards and John Sperling for getting such an excellent team in place and making me feel so comfortable.

 

At the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, I had a great time watching Prof. Macaulay and Dr. Geller operate their cases on their respective days. I was watching mostly primary hip and knee arthroplasties with Prof. Macaulay, which though interesting was a bit of a routine. But he was a man of all ears and he was keen to interact with me right through his surgeries. I observed a lot of unicondylar knee arthroplasties with Dr. Geller, many of which would have got a TKA back home in India. This led to a lot of useful discussions between us and he was quite confident of decision-making and did have results to support his claim. What fascinated me in my very short stay in New York was the training system. Both surgeons, were operating on around 6 cases a day over a time of 12 hours, which for their ability could have been done in much shorter time but for the training of residents and fellows. The trainees were so patiently and methodically guided through the surgeries to impart maximum learning and allowing them to make the best use of the opportunity. I personally would have loved to stay longer but for an emergency back home. It was a great trip to remember and hope I can meet a lot of these people again when I come back for the annual meeting.

I personally would have loved to scrub during my fellowship, but I think the rules may not approve of that. But I think an observer should also scrub even to watch the surgeries better especially with so many trainees around the surgeon. This is just my personal opinion.

My special thanks to Dr. Ashok Johari who as the SICOT, India representative helped me a great deal to apply for this great program. It was such a great honor to hear people back home say that my name was flashing over at the annual meeting in New Orleans as the AAOS international awardee thanks to AAOS.  Once again I thank the entire AAOS team for giving me this great opportunity.