2022
2022 in brief – linked to new pages
UBC (through the office of the Vice-Provost International) and its Department of Orthopaedics (under Professor and Chair Kishore Mulpuri) have increasingly focused on global issues generally and in respect to medical work. We were featured about a year ago as an example of how international collaborations can be productive. https://global.ubc.ca/news-events/stories/oct-19-2021-when-one-connection-makes-all-difference
In this context, perhaps the most satisfying development this year was the granting to us, by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, generous financial support for 3 years to initiate a Nepali Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (NPMR) training program in Nepal. After exploring the option of setting up a full 3-year Residency, we are seriously considering (with the College’s support) a 2-year Fellowship program which should train 2 selected specialists in PMR. These trainees will have wide-ranging skills not limited to spinal cord injury, and they will be a great asset to Nepal. The core team includes Drs Raju Dhakal and Christine Groves with their local situational expertise, with Claire Weeks and Peter Wing’s access to the teaching skills of western colleagues and Canadian educational concepts. We are currently in discussions with other Canadians who may offer specific skills. The Canadian Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons IDAC branch outline of the grant and the project can be found here Royal College Newsroom We shall periodically update the progress of this project on our dedicated SpiNepal page: https://spinepal.orthopaedics.med.ubc.ca/rcpsc-idac-grant/page:
You may recall that we supported Dr Jas Gurung through the last two years of his training in Dhaka. He passed his exams there and in Nepal and has been working alongside Raju since his return to Kathmandu at the beginning of the year – a great help to Raju. Jas attended a training program in Chiang Mai, Thailand in February. His family has moved back to Nepal from the UK and while his son is adapting well to the change, his (older) daughter is finding it difficult. We are looking forward to his working closely with us on the development of the NPMR project.
Prakash, whose family moved into new accommodation in Kathmandu in February, left almost immediately after to take up a position as Spine Surgery Fellow at the Victoria Hospital in London Ontario. This has been a challenging but rewarding period in his career, and we are deeply grateful for the trust, support, commitment and belief in the goals of global training brought to this by Drs Singh and Rasoulinejad and their colleagues in London. Prakash’s blog and experience can be found on this SpiNepal page. He is working steadily to advance the availability and quality of spine surgical care in Nepal.