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The Birmingham Orthopaedic Network – Collaboration, facilitation, empowerment Usman Ahmed
Usman Ahmed is a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon with a special interest in Lower Limb Revision Arthroplasty at the Princess Royal Hospital, Telford. The Birmingham Orthopaedic Network was developed in his final year of training in Birmingham and as a BOA Clinical Leadership Fellow in 2017/18�.
36 | JTO | Volume 08 | Issue 01 | March 2020 | boa.ac.uk
The past decade has seen a rapid growth of trainee collaboratives. The West Midlands Research Group (general surgery) led the way and demonstrated the effect of empowering driven trainees in research. Since then trainees have played a significant role in studies starting with recruitment of patients to major studies through to developing and receiving funding for trainee-led projects. This has not gone unnoticed and has the broad support of consultant and research bodies.
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he Birmingham Orthopaedic Network (BON) has its roots in the traditional collaborative model but has been expanded to promote wider engagement beyond surgical trainees. In addition, the model has sought to facilitate training and education as part of a broader drive towards an improved and engaging culture. The proposal for the BON (August 2017) initially achieved broad stakeholder support on a local and regional level. With support from the Birmingham Orthopaedic Training Programme, the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital and Health Education England.
From the outset infrastructure was developed towards three strategic aims: 1. To facilitate collaborative working with robust protocols and policies to enable rapid development, assessment and implementation of audit/research projects. 2. To develop a pathway to allow medical students to actively participate on traineesupervised projects. 3. To build an educational platform. In the almost two years since its inception the BON has garnered widespread local, regional and national support and trainees
