August 22, 2024The bi-annual General Surgery Registrar Prize Night is the brainchild of Professor Hamish Ewing, inaugural Associate Professor of Surgery at the Preston and Northcote Community Hospital (PANCH).
It is a way of celebrating and rewarding our accredited surgical registrars for their dedication and hard work across the six months of their rotation at Northern Health. And what better way to reward them than to make them present a case report and literature review in a competitive environment!
The Prize Night, held on 25 July, was a particularly good one. The rules of the competition are that registrars must present a case they have managed in their six-month term, present a relevant literature discussion, and above all, stick to the 10-minute time limit.
All six registrars did a fantastic job, were clearly very enthusiastic regarding their topics, and had put a lot of work into their presentations. Dr Neil Strugnell and Dr Bibhusal Thapa had the unenviable job of judging, while those in attendance enjoyed the excellent spread of sushi and Vietnamese spring rolls put on by our sponsor Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD). Our thanks to the BD representative, Sam Jawad, and also to Donna Wilkes, who organised the evening and was the official timekeeper.
Tess Howard kicked off proceedings with a fascinating case about foreign body perforation of a Meckel’s diverticulum. Alex Kuminov had a great discussion following a case with synchronous oesophageal and gastric cancers, and how to surgically manage these. Khadijah Ahmed presented a great ethical dilemma of when to remove peritoneal metastatic disease, the role of debulking, the role of Hyperthermic Intra-Peritoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC), or whether palliative care is more appropriate in a patient wanting active treatment.
The judges highlighted Candy Cheng’s talk on a large fungating Phylloides tumour, and in particular were impressed at the depth of patient care when delving into a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosis being the reason for the markedly delayed presentation. Sara Mohammed Jinnaah’s talk was also highlighted for the amazing video and pictures of a humungous gallstone being delivered out of the duodenum in a rare case of Bouveret’s Syndrome – gallstone ileus with duodenal impaction.
The star of the night was vascular registrar, Amar Lakhani, who presented a case of femoral artery pseudoaneurysm and abscess in an IV drug user. Seeing a photo of a pseudoaneurysm that had emerged through the skin, and hearing about the acute rupture on the ward was a little terrifying, but the discussion around the surgical methods to first save the life, and then save the leg had the whole audience asking questions. Congratulations to Amar, who was a worthy winner!
The registrars in the second half of the year will get a chance to show their presenting skills at the next Surgical Registrar Prize Night on 12 of December at 5.30 pm in the Northern Health Lecture Theatre and on Teams.
Picture shows Registrar Amar Lakhani, Sam Jawad, BD representative and Drs Bibhusal Thapa and Neil Strugnell.
