Recently Mr Kash Akhtar was awarded a prize at the British Association for Surgery of the Knee (BASK) 2013 Annual Conference for his work on assessing surgical skills using a Virtual Reality knee arthroscopy simulator, which is just one of his many achievements of late. The most prestigious was receiving a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship.

“I was surprised to be awarded the Fellowship as there is stiff competition with over 1200 people applying, for 100 places, from all walks of life with wide ranging and fascinating projects such as therapeutic horticulture, millinery, iron art casting, corporate social responsibility, renewable energy generation and the use of theatre in engaging marginalised young people. The process was rigorous and included an initial application, followed by a more detailed written project proposal after shortlisting and then final interviews. I feel greatly honoured to be associated with one of the most influential and inspiring people in history ”.

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust was established after his death in gratitude for his inspired leadership in order to create a living memorial that would benefit future generations of British people.  The purpose of the Fellowship award is to recognise and support Britons of great promise to travel overseas, to bring back knowledge and best practice for the benefit of others in their professions and communities.

Mr Kash Akhtar, Clinical Lecturer in Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery, currently works with Mr Chimnay Gupte and Professor Justin Cobb in the MSk Lab, Imperial College London, specialising in the education and training of surgeons using simulation and technology. Their work has been shortlisted for the prestigious Jacques Duparc award at EFFORT 2013 in Istanbul this summer.

Mr Akhtar will be undertaking a project called “Mind the gap: ensuring effective continuity of medical care”.

Talking about what his Fellowship entails, he commented:

“I will be visiting centres of excellence in Orthopaedic surgery in the United States for two months to see how they manage their patients peri-operatively to improve clinical outcomes, minimise complications and reduce unnecessary readmissions and burden on the system. The ‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’, commonly known as ‘Obamacare’, has put a great emphasis on preventative healthcare and electronic medical records. There are several US hospitals leading the way on this.  Hospitals with excessive readmissions will face significant penalties and I am intrigued by how the use of electronic health records might address this by facilitating better communication between primary and secondary care.

I am looking forward to working closely with US surgeons and engaging with my hosts for the sharing of best practices and future collaboration. I hope to be able to bring home new ideas and ways of working that will benefit patients undergoing orthopaedic surgery here in the UK.”

Happy New Year and we hope you had a relaxing and festive Christmas.

To welcome 2013,The Lab Report is back bringing you up to date with recent developments from the MSk Lab.

Thank you to Lady Chichester (and Therese) for letting us include her story of a ‘miraculous’ total hip replacement.

Our Bone Boffin tells us a a tale of two sexes …

….and plenty more.

If you would like to be added to the mailing list, please email Miss Zoe Williams on the msklab@imperial.ac.uk with full details.

Click here to read edition 3

Rosalind Marshall (on left)

I am currently a 5th year medical student at Imperial College School of Medicine (ICSM), and have been undertaking research within the MSk lab since my third year under the direction of Professor Cobb. I have been researching how gait changes after having a knee replacement using an ‘instrumented treadmill’, and whether we can produce a simpler way of looking at and translating the data.

In August, ICSM undergraduates were invited by the medical school’s Surgical Society in partnership with the Charing Cross academic vascular surgery department to submit research work that has been published or presented for the ‘Professor Alun Davies Prize for Undergraduate Research Excellence‘. I submitted my poster on the gait of patients with osteoarthritis before undergoing their knee replacements, which I presented at the BASK annual meeting 2012. I was one of three undergraduates shortlisted to give a presentation on this research in front of Prof. Alison McGregor, Prof. Ceri Davies and Prof. Alun Davies, as well as a panel of other judges. I was very pleased to be awarded joint first place alongside final-year student Sarah Mason (for her work on a vascular surgery error capture tool).

Of course, none of this would have been possible if it were not for all of the patients who have had their gait tested on the treadmill, Prof. Cobb, Victoria Manning, and everyone else within the department – so a huge thank you to them!

Below are some graphs which I have developed as a tool to interpret the data that the treadmill collates.

No OA - pre op

No OA - post op

With OA - pre op

With OA - post op

Alison, Richie, Stephen Gentleman and Michael Wilson judged the podium and poster entries for the ICSM SORA National Conference (2012). A great event organised by the student committee.

Alison, Frank and Richie took part in this months Imperial Fringe event: Cutting Close to the Bone. After running  hands on demo about healthy bone growth, Richie joined Alison and Sandra Shefelbine to discuss bones and how lifestyle changes them.

Alison, Frank and Richie took part in this months Imperial Fringe event: Cutting Close to the Bone. After running  hands on demo about healthy bone growth, Richie joined Alison and Sandra Shefelbine to discuss bones and how lifestyle changes them.

November 2012.

Richie visited Markus Bastir (top left) at theNational Museum of Natural Sciences, Madrid, to discuss bone shape analysis (bottom left).

Whilst there Richie met the Kebara Neanderthal (top right) and gave a talk (bottom right). Note that the slide is in Spanish.

Hasta Luego Amigos!

November 2012. Richie has been awarded an SSI Fellowship from the
Institute for Software Sustainability.

The institute is funded by a variety of organisations including the EPSRC (who also fund the Osteoarthritis Centre).

During the selection process Richie and the other shortlisted candidates gave a talk to SSI at an even hosted by Shoaib Sufi (bottom left) the Community Liaison.

The SSI aims to provide a range of help for developing sustainable research software packages such as PhaseQuant.

Congratulations to the Bone Boffin – can you spot him?

My story by Anthony Leong

I was born in Singapore and because my parents passed away from a very young age, I was pretty independent right from the very beginning. If there is one thing my mother taught me early in life which I attribute to where I am today, it would be the most important thing to have in the world is a good education, and that no one will help me more than myself. Typical of Chinese culture, my mother was harsh and would expect me to have at least 98% in all my exams; if not I was met with severe punishment! Of course even today I thought that was a bit extreme, but nonetheless it set the stage for me strive even harder and work towards more achievements.

After primary school I attended Christ Church Grammar School in Australia where I took up hobbies in hockey and flying. Initially I chose subjects such as math and science as I wanted to do engineering, and maths and science were my best subjects. I was also inquisitive when it came to designing new ideas and I loved problem solving.

The turning point came however sometime towards the end of my high school years, when a certain individual convinced me that engineering was mundane and I would end up working on boring pieces of equipment such as a circuit board of a washing machine, and inanimate objects such as these couldn’t talk and interact with you. Hence I chose medicine, as I love interaction with people and in addition it involves solving problems, and is intellectually challenging. As I chose to retain my Singapore citizenship, I had to postpone medical school and return to Singapore for my 2.5 years of National Service. After basic military training I spent my time at the army’s psychological care centre as a researcher helping to develop a set of scores for army recruits at a high risk for suicide, self harm and other psychiatric illnesses.

Delighted that at last national service was over, I went back to Australia to enrol in medical school at the University of Tasmania graduating with a BMedSci(Hons) and MBBS (Hons). I completed my FY1 year at The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane, and my FY2 year, at Princess Alexandra Hospital, also in Brisbane. Subsequently I decided to join Imperial College as a researcher with the aim of completing a MD(res) at the department of Surgery and Cancer, in the field of Orthopaedics. I felt this would be a good time to let my inquisitive nature expand my research abilities. I hope to learn more about knee morphology and kinematics, with the aim of improving current surgical techniques, and influence the next generation of knee prosthetic implants.

Right now I love being here in the United Kingdom, as culturally its very similar to Australia and in some aspects even Singapore. I hope to eventually specialise here in the United Kingdom, as the environment is very conducive to academia and the support I have from my colleagues and bosses here at Imperial College is overwhelmingly good!