The search of oriental pearls of wisdom and friendship

Fellowship Group picture with Professor He

I was honoured and privileged to be awarded the Marian and Christina Ionescu Consultant Travelling Fellowship in 2017 by the SCTS to take a team to learn and implement the use of non-intubational techniques in Thoracic Surgery, from one of the high volume centres in China specialising in this approach.

Ihave previously benefited from the SCTS Ethicon Trainee Fellowship where I spent 3 months learning this technique with Professor He, from the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University. I discovered that it has the potential to benefit some of our patients, and to enhance their recovery. Hence, I wanted to introduce this technique in my centre in a structured manner. I also learnt from my time there, while helping them set up an International course for this technique, successful delivery of this approach will need the close co-operation between our anaesthetists and theatre staff to get used to some of the technical adjustments required. Therefore, it was important that I engaged all relevant teams (ie. anaesthetists, anaesthetic and theatre ODPs, and my surgical colleagues) early to start this venture. I am extremely grateful to Mr and Dr Ionescu

Fellowship ward round visit with Professor He for this generous fellowship enabling me to lead a team (Anaesthetist Dr A Elsissi, team leader from surgical and anaesthetic ODPs Mrs L Jones & Mrs B Sursham, and another surgical colleague, Mr Rathinam) to go to China to observe, practise and learn the nuances of this approach.

During our intensive immersion visit (with not much time to recover from jetlag after a 12 hr flight), Professor He and his anaesthetic team had organised daily lectures on the surgical and anaesthetic aspects of this approach so we all could gain a better understanding of the principles and potential application of it. We also had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in operating theatres every day so that everyone could gain a firsthand practical knowledge of the skills and techniques. While there are a lot of “how to do” videos on the internet, they cannot provide the opportunity this visit offered to interact with experts and understand the

entire set up together with the tips and tricks of this technique. Professor He and his team had made sure that we all had the skills and confidence to implement this back in the UK before we left, and this made this trip really fruitful for everyone!

The learning opportunities were not limited to operating theatres and lectures. We were shown around the hospital and even had an interesting visit to their traditional Chinese Medicine department. One of the most valuable aspects in my view was that we saw the patients preoperatively and post-operatively on the wards and so we had a better understanding of their patient’s journey and how this technique can benefit them. When I first proposed this technique to our institution, there was a lot of scepticism about its feasibility and application. I am very pleased that some of the more sceptical members of the visiting team had changed their views about the non-intubational approach by the end of this visit.

Whilst the primary aim of the visit was to learn a new technique, we felt that it was equally important that we took this opportunity to promote a mutual exchange of ideas, share our knowledge, build new friendships and establish a long-term collaboration. Therefore, we had also given a few talks during our time there introducing our training in Thoracic Surgery and Anaesthesia. As the first step towards our mutual collaboration, we also invited Professor He and his team over in March 2018 for the first GlenfieldGuangzhou Collaborative Training Event, whereby we had a mini-symposium on nonintubational thoracic surgery (see separate article). During his visit with us, Professor He also had the chance to share his work with the wider UK audience at the Annual SCTS meeting in Glasgow.

Overall, this was a hugely successful and rewarding trip for all of us, and we were very grateful to Professor He and his team for their friendship, guidance and hospitality. I am grateful too for the SCTS for giving us this wonderful opportunity. Finally, I would like to dedicate this article to Mr Marian and Dr Christina Ionescu to thank them for their generous fellowship that gave us this fantastic opportunity to learn and bring a new technique back to the UK. In the January 2018 edition of the SCTS bulletin, Mr Ionescu mentioned that “..I do find now more time to shower more love, friendship and more help on more people”. I hope I have, through this fellowship, fulfilled his aim and vision, by bringing a new technique to help UK patients, and by establishing new friendships for the UK cardiothoracic surgery. n

Fellowship learning from our Chinese anaesthetic colleagues

Fellowship group with anaesthetists

Fellowship lectures about non-intubational Thoracic Surgery

Fellowship lectures about our training system