Simon Moyes teams up with Smith & Nephew to launch pioneering new website
Simon Moyes is pioneering a brand new website which will for the first time record arthroscopic operations from the surgeon’s viewpoint and footage of the same operation from inside the actual joint, simultaneously.
The “Arthroscopic Atlas” is being developed by Simon Moyes and Smith & Nephew, the company which develops advanced medical devices for healthcare professionals around the world. The website is primarily aimed at students, junior surgeons and patients who want to learn more about how such operations are carried out.
Visitors to the website, which is expected to go live in January, will be able to watch Simon Moyes performing ankle arthroscopy, with two cameras capturing the procedure outside the ankle, focusing on what instruments he uses and his hand movements, as the talks through the various processes while he operates.
At the same time, a tiny arthroscopic camera inside the ankle will capture the actual procedure itself and the spectrum of different stages.
The two recorded videos will be showed on a split screen in real time, giving a unique new dimension to operations.
Traditionally, such techniques have been learnt by text book, watching surgeons in theatre and viewing video footage from inside joints. However, this is the first time these two processes have been married together, so they can be watched at the same time, and specific parts of the operation carried out by Simon Moyes can be paused or replayed, with the corresponding surgical techniques scrutinised.
Simon Moyes believes the Arthroscopic Atlas provides a breakthrough by giving many more people access to the inners workings of specific techniques.
“It is often challenging for people learning these techniques to know where to position their hands, what minute movements can do, and this is done in real time which increases the pressure for those who are new to the technique. However, this new website will help give them more time to really get to learn various procedures, meaning they should be more competent and prepared when they come to do the real thing”.
Simon Moyes also hopes the website will appeal to patients who want to know more about arthroscopic surgery and may make them feel more at ease ahead of any operations they are due to have.
Simon Moyes was filmed by the Smith & Nephew team at a theatre in the Wellington Hospital, in St John’s Wood, where the surgeon holds regular clinics. Although the new website initially features ankle arthroscopy, Simon Moyes and his team plan to film further procedures on knees and shoulders in 2012, which can then be added to the site.
“This is truly one of the most exciting developments in surgical training for a generation”, said Simon Moyes.
The Arthroscopic Atlas, created by Simon Moyes and Smith & Nephew, will launch in January 2012.
Siemens Magnetom Skyra
Hello.
It’s now six weeks since I started operating out of The Wellington’s new Platinum Medical Centre and the feedback from medics and patients alike has been fantastic. The technological advances now at our disposal can be epitomized by the image quality produced by the new scanners.
We are currently using the Siemens Magnetom Aera 1.5T, which makes MR exams easier for medics and the whole process more comfortable for patients than ever before. For example, the super-short magnet allows many studies to be completed with the patient’s head outside the bore. This, in turn, reduces patient fear and anxiety. Medics benefit because of the enhanced image quality – resolution is phenomenal.
It enables us to see what we could not see before, such as fine tissue detail and cartilage problems. All in all, there is better management of patients. In three months the Siemens Magnetom Skyra 3T will arrive, which will set the bar even higher.
Read my blog on Torn Peroneal Tendons next week.
Educational Videos
Hello. This week I will begin recording the first in a series of educational videos. The videos are for, and will be sponsored by global medical services company, Smith & Nephew. The company is also the largest producer of arthroscopy products.
We will make a series of dual screen videos, which illustrate how to do various keyhole procedures on the ankle joint. Once these videos have been made, they will be distributed amongst the Smith & Nephew sales teams. They will also be included in a new surgical atlas, which will be added to my website www.ankle-arthroscopy.co.uk.
Other news now – the Old Broad Street clinic in the City http://www.31oldbroadstreet.co.uk/ is experiencing a 20% increase in patients year-on-year for the fourth successive year. As a result, we will be extending our clinic on Wednesday afternoons. So instead of running from the current 2pm-4pm, it will go on until 6pm or possibly 7pm. The start date will be published in due course.
We try to provide a one stop shop service with patients being seen, scanned and seen again on the same day.
Keep reading my blogs and visiting my sites for further updates and more information.
It’s here at last. Some 14 months of design and build has culminated in the UK’s biggest diagnostic and outpatient centre. And on 3rd May, I was fortunate enough to be the first consultant to operate from it.
The Wellington Hospital’s new Platinum Medical Centre is nothing short of incredible. The £33m extension will serve some 70,000 patients a year and marks the dawn of a new age at hospital.
The project involved the conversion of an existing seven-storey commercial office building into a private sector day surgery unit.
In addition, the new medical centre houses four operating theatres on the fifth floor, preparation and recovery facilities on the fourth floor, consulting rooms on the first to third floors, with an oncology suite on the ground floor and imaging suites at basement level.
For the first time in my experience, orthopaedic surgeons now have a whole dedicated floor, with a radiology reporting room close by. The whole thing has been very well thought through.
The building is 50,000 ft. across seven floors and increases the size of the Wellington – already the nation’s largest hospital – by a third.
My first patient was Simon Rosenfeld from north London, who recently had an operation to remove a small lesion from his foot.
Comparing this new building with facilities in other hospitals is like checking in at Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class Wing at Heathrow.
The Platinum Medical Centre has as an extensive state-of-the-art imaging centre and the building also has 50 consulting rooms. It’s in a class of its own, as the saying goes.
Hear what else I had to say on the Platinum Medical Centre in the Kilburn Times here.
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Ankle Osteochondral defect
Osteochondral defects (OCD) are very localised areas of joint damage which typically affect the talus bone or astragalus – the bone in the tarsus of the foot which forms the lower part of the ankle joint – and where the cartilage and underlying bone have been disrupted.
The level of disruption can vary from ‘bruising’ to a crater or deep defect on the surface of the joint, affecting the underlying bone as well as cartilage. These most often occur after some injury to the joint.
It is not uncommon for this condition to develop as a consequence of patient’s spraining their ankle, especially if the effects of such an injury have failed to settle and led to a prolonged period of instability and intense pain around the ankle joint for the patient.
The changes in the joint surface are normally very localised, are almost always just on the talar side of the joint and result in softening of the joint surface.
Patients with OCD will generally experience pain when they place weight on the ankle joint and at infrequent periods whilst resting. It is also not uncommon for patients to experience feelings of instability from the joint.
Treatment for OCD may not always be necessary, particularly for stable lesion. Unstable [grade 3 or 4] lesions normally require arthroscopic debridement and microfracturing. This has 80% good or excellent results and lesions take six to eight weeks to heal.
