Thursday, May 3, 2012

London to Oxford!


Our stay in London with the Great Ormond Street group was, as with every other center that we have attended thus far, a fantastic experience.  We learned about the clubfoot and congenital hand programs at (oh my) GOSH, and also spent time in the clinics.  I have to say, from a food standpoint, we had three fantastic dinners in London (really! - no jokes about English food).  Below is a picture from dinner at the OXO tower.  We had a window seat with a 270 degree view of London.  Thanks Deborah, what a beautiful city!


As Michelle mentioned last post, I was able to spend some time at the British Museum.  In the ancient greek section, I ran across the following displays on medicine.  Note the preoperative exam by the ancient pediatric orthopedic surgeon.  And you think that your osteotomes need sharpening!


Tuesday morning, we headed for Oxford by "coach"......no horses needed:









In Oxford we met our local host Tim Theologis.  We visited the relatively new orthopaedic facility, Nuffield Orthopaedic Center.......










......which was incidentally the former home of Professor GR Girdlestone.  So much history here!










We took a tour of the Botnar Research Center.  This state of the art facility is entirely devoted to the investigation of musculoskeletal basic science, including biochemistry, physiology and bioengineering.


This visit was followed by a tour of their beautiful gait lab and an introduction to some of the work promoted by this center.  Tim Theologis, Rachel Buckingham, Andy Wainwright and the rest of this impressive group are clearly on the leading edge of care for children with cerebral palsy:


On Wednesday, we spent the morning in clinic and the afternoon giving and listening to lectures.  The highlight for me was the review by Colin Nnadi of his early experience with magnetically controlled growing rods. That night we had dinner at St. Hugh's College (one of the 38 colleges composing this most ancient of universities).








And celebrated with St. Hugh's own Bubbly!
Thursday morning was spent in the operating room with Mr. Theologis:


And then had a few hours to tour around this most spectacular of University towns:




All in all, we could not have finished our fellowship tour of Europe with any better of an experience, nor with more gracious hosts.  Thank you to Tim, Rachel and Andy and thank you POSNA and EPOS for the experience of a lifetime!