TRAVELLING FELLOWSHIP

I was very fortunate to be given the opportunity to undertake The Oxford® Partial Knee Travelling Fellowship at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre (NOC) of the Oxford University Hospitals. The NOC is an internationally renowned elective Orthopaedic hospital, with strong affiliations to the University of Oxford. It boasts very well established academic medical practices across specialist Orthopaedic surgery, Plastic surgery, and Rheumatology services. This culminates in excellence in clinical care, research, and innovation. The NOC is also the design centre for the Oxford® Partial Knee, the only medial unicompartmental knee arthroplasty implant with excellent 30-year survivorship data. As a knee surgeon, I was keen to add the surgical knowledge of the Oxford® Partial Knee to my armamentarium so that I will be able to offer this as an option to appropriate patients under my care at the Sengkang General Hospital in Singapore.

The Oxford® Partial Knee is a bone- and soft tissue-preserving procedure which seeks to resurface the worn cartilage of a single compartment of the knee with restoration of the native knee kinematics. Other than superior implant survivorship, this implant has also shown to produce excellent patient- and physicianreported outcomes.

Through this 2-week travelling fellowship, I hoped to learn the indications, pre-operative assessment and planning for the Oxford® Partial Knee as well as the surgical techniques and pearls from the designer surgeons as well as high-volume surgeons at the NOC. This included plenty of opportunities to scrub up with the knee surgeons at the NOC and assist them with the Oxford® Partial Knee procedure, to observe specialist outpatient clinic sessions which included pre-operative assessment clinics, acute knee clinics as well as post-operative follow-up clinics. I was also involved in the pre-operative planning of the surgeries listed for the 2 weeks as well as in the multi-disciplinary team rounds where complex cases were discussed. I was also involved in discussions for potential longer-term research and academic collaboration between myself and the knee surgeons at the NOC.

The experience, insights and perspectives gained from this travelling fellowship have enriched me greatly. As a knee surgeon who sees patients from all walks of life across all age-groups, it is very important for me to be skilled in various procedures so that I can discuss all possible options with the patients before deciding with the patient which procedure might be most suitable for them. I have been performing arthroscopic procedures, osteotomies, fixed-bearing unicompartmental knee arthroplasties as well as total knee arthroplasties for patients presenting along the spectrum of knee osteoarthritis. However, there remains a significant group of patients who would benefit from a mobilebearing partial knee replacement. I believe that the Oxford® Partial Knee would be the ideal implant to offer these patients as it is a bone- and soft tissue-preserving procedure which best restores the native knee kinematics. With the knowledge and skills gained from this travelling fellowship, I am now confident to be able to offer this as an option to the relevant patients.