2011

Although we expected that we might make a trip to Nepal this year, we deferred this to SIRC’s planned tenth anniversary celebrations in spring 2012 (at their request).

While in Vancouver, Claire undertook extensive research into our options for further specialist training of Dr. Raju in the field of spinal cord injury (SCI). This involved a detailed review of data from the Canadian agencies responsible for admissions to all training programs in Canada; namely, the Canadian Post-MD Education Registry (CAPER – here) and the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CARMS – here ). We closely examined the merits and disadvantages of seeking full specialty training regionally (in Asia), in North America and other non-regional centres (eg Australia) and of developing a customised program in the form of a Master of Science degree in SCI medicine. By May of this year Dr Raju was also making enquiries of the training options he could discover regionally.

In the same manner, we also evaluated the options available for Dr Prakash, while he considered which of a few alternative approaches to neurosurgical spine training he might find most acceptable in Nepal and affordable within our financial constraints. Prakash began his 18 month general surgery rotations at Kathmandu Model Hospital July 1 2011.

We explored the opportunities to establish a cost centre in the UBC Development fund providing us with an appropriate tax-exempt donation mechanism, and for development of a web page ‘home’ for the project.

We (Claire and Peter) joined the elearnSCI project team developing a number of educational modules. More information about this project can be found here