Our Specialties: Trauma and Orthopaedics
About the Department
The Rowley Bristow Orthopaedic Unit continues the tradition of education and innovation started by our founder, former BOA President Walter Rowley Bristow at the end of WW1.
The Unit now comes under the Division of Theatres, Anaesthetics, Surgery and Critical Care, led by Divisional Director John Hadley. We offer a comprehensive range of services for patients with bone and soft tissues conditions, providing joint replacements (including revisions), Hip, Knee, Shoulder, Elbow, Hand & Wrist, Foot & Ankle and Spinal Surgery. The Unit also cover Acute Trauma for the North East Surrey area and a regional centre in application of Ilizarov frames for trauma and for limb reconstruction. The Unit also has a visiting consultant from St. George's for orthopaedic services for children (Paediatric Orthopaedics).
The Unit works across two sites, Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals, where RBOU Consultants provide a dedicated ring fenced MRSA free environment on Dickens Ward at Ashford for planned elective surgery. At St Peters the Rowley Bristow Orthopaedic Unit has its own dedicated services; orthopaedic outpatient clinics, pre-admission clinics, fracture clinics, x-ray, plaster room, and admissions office. St Peters' in-patients are mainly trauma patients but we also admit elective patients who have complex medical needs where they are cared for on Swan Ward.
The Team
The Rowley Bristow Orthopaedic team consists of:
- 16 Orthopaedic Consultants
- 6 registrars
- Trauma Fellow
- Upper and Lower Limb Fellows
- 2 Associate Specialists
- 2 HEKSS Core Trainees
- 2 HEKSS GPSTs
- 7 Trust grade SHOs
- 11 Foundation doctors
The team is supported by the Business Unit Service Manager, Matron, Trauma Nurse Practitioner, Fracture Neck of Femur Nurse, 2 Physiotherapist Clinical Specialists, Nurse led Pre-assessment team and 3 Care of the Elderly Consultants. Within the Swan Ward environment, the Ward Manager has a team of trained and trainee nurses, with Physiotherapists and physiotherapy assistants, Occupational Therapists and a Discharge Co-ordinator. Consultants undertake daily Trauma meetings augmented by regular ward rounds and a Multidisciplinary meeting is held weekly on each ward.
Local Training Days
Education in T&O is built on the one-to-one approach. Every trainee of each grade has a Clinical Supervisor with timetabled activity to take part in theatre sessions and clinics. We very much expect our junior doctors to leave us with a sound working knowledge of the breadth of musculoskeletal services today's Orthopaedic Surgeon offers, including practical skills such as clinical examination, joint injection, fracture management and plastering.
This one-to-one approach is augmented by daily Trauma Meeting education and ward rounds which every trainee gets an opportunity to lead, developing communication and leadership skills.
Foundation doctors are encouraged to attend the rolling education programme which is bleep-free and ASPH hosts the Core Training Regional Training days. HEKSS Registrar training has been revamped to monthly whole-day events which ASPH also hosts.
Other Educational Events/ Opportunities
Tanaya Sarkhel, Orthopaedic Consultant and current Surgical Tutor, has started a blog one of the functions of which is to highlight spaces on local courses run by the Royal College of Surgeons. Keep an eye on this as local courses more frequently have spaces available especially for those qualifications required at National Selection.
Sub-Specialty Opportunities
The Rowley Bristow Orthopaedic Unit offers a considerable amount of sub-speciality opportunities not frequently seen in the DGH setting. Arthroscopic techniques for hip, knee, shoulder, wrist and ankle, particularly in the sports injury setting, are widespread here and there is prolific opportunity to learn. The Unit has a long history of trauma training, with several dedicated Trauma Surgeons, and is a popular placement for Core trainees as we achieve excellent logbook numbers for them.
Research Opportunities
We have a fantastic track record of producing good quality clinical research with HSTs regularly presenting at AAOS, BOA and EFFORT. We encourage all our trainees to become involved in audits, presenting these at our Educational Half Days.
Supervision
We run a weekly service plan system where all doctors undertake timetabled activity. This means ring fenced time is provided for clinic and theatre attendance, allowing 1-to-1 interaction with Clinical Supervisors. We have re-introduced a firm structure to encourage team-building and collaborative working.
Exam Support
The Chertsey Revision Course for FRCS (Tr&Orth) is now in its 13th year. On top of that we run interview skills and portfolio presentation workshops and Core Surgical group sessions for MRCS
Tanaya Sarkhel | |
Introducing the College Tutor
My name is Tanaya Sarkhel, Orthopaedic Surgeon and Surgical Tutor at Ashford & St Peter's Hospitals. I hope you'll find this page helpful particularly for junior doctors trying to choose and decide which organisation they hope to do their training in.
My special interests lie in Hand & Wrist Surgery and arthroscopic Shoulder Surgery but I am also a Qualified Educational Supervisor and interview annually at National Selection for Core and Higher Surgical Training. My main driver for that is to provide our trainees with up-to-date information on the interview and portfolio process in order to prepare them successfully and I am delighted at how many we have been able to support in this way. I am also involved in pastoral care, particularly with respect to poor interpersonal interactions (bullying and undermining) which sadly is something that 1:3 healthcare professionals experience in their workplaces.
I am delighted in the amount of information available via social media and to curate it a little bit I tweet as @SurgicalTutor where I disseminate what's going on in the hospital and the Royal Colleges.
I've also got a blog page which carries similar information to this page and is easily accessible here.
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Find out more
Further information about this specialty can be found at www.ashfordstpeters.nhs.uk/orthopaedics
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