Scientific trip to Morriston Hospital in Swansea

The planning of my scientific trip started when I met Dr. Adrian W Sugar in Davos at the AO course Craniomaxillofacial principles 30 th November - 5 th December 2002. My Supervisor professor Jan Rosenquist encouraged me to attend this attachment and we agreed that I should join the clinic in Morriston Hospital in Swansea in February 2004.

My family and I left Sweden in the beginning of February and went via London to Swansea. We rent an apartment at the Maritime in Swansea which was about 5 km from Morriston Hospital.

Swansea

is located on the southern, sandy coast of Wales, and occupies the peninsula of Gower.  Swansea lies some 60 miles west of the Welsh border with England and 38 miles west of Cardiff, the capital city of Wales.

Swansea Maritime Quarter has been formally recognized as one of the top three waterside developments in Europe.

Scandinavian invaders built a fortress at Swansea in the 10th Century and named the area after their leader, Swein. By the fourteenth century the Welsh had established ship building at Swansea, accompanied by a sea fishing tradition which was to span the succeeding centuries until the present day.

Swansea NHS Trust

Established on 1 April 1999. It provides a comprehensive range of hospital and community health services for the Swansea population of approximately 250,000. The Trust also provides many specialist services for the people across south and mid Wales and some specialist services for the whole of Wales.

Services are provided from 9 hospitals with over 1,800 beds and in a range of community premises. These include psychiatric day centres and resource centres, health centres, health clinics, hired premises, GP surgeries and patients' homes.

Morriston Hospital
Morriston Hospital itself has currently 850 beds, the majority of which are housed in modern accommodation which has been built since 1981. The range of specialist services provided at Morriston Hospital now includes Renal Medicine, Neurology and Neurosurgery, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, the Welsh Centre for Burns and Plastic Surgery and the second Cardiac Centre in Wales. Rheumatology and Palliative Medicine are also provided to a wide catchment area.

Morriston Hospital is also the site of the major Accident and Emergency Department for Swansea and, with its accessibility to the South West Wales population, is fast progress toward designated Major Trauma Centre status for the area.

In general the oral and maxillofacial surgery in UK is a specialty requiring a dual qualification in medicine and dentistry. There are training programmes in academic Oral & Maxillofacial surgery, where a medical qualification is not mandatory and will develop in Surgical Dentistry, the majority of individuals in this group hold staff grade appointments in oral surgery in hospital units.

The Department of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery had five consultants:

Mr A W Sugar, Mrs P W Baxter, Mr S Hodder, Mr D W Patton, & Mr Keith C Silvester. There were three trainees in the residency program (Registrars), four staff grade and three house officers.

My program in the department was arranged so that I had the freedom to attend the operation room and the clinic for activities of my choice. Thus I attended and assisted in variety of operations such as tumour resection and reconstruction, trauma cases, cleft lip and palate cases, orthognathic and osteodistraction case. In addition I also attended some joint clinics with the craniofacial team.

Example of cases

It was interesting to expose myself to others experience and I got a lot of clinical and scientific input from this trip which has already proven useful in my professional work.

Finally I would like to express my great thanks to my professor Jan Rosenquist and Swedish Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons without them this trip could not have become possible.

Awwad Al-Bishri

Malmö

UPP