Fiji Report - Lautoka
FEBRUARY 2006

TEACHING
Teaching is conducted to the Orthopaedic, Nursing and Physiotherapy departments. Teaching occurs when and wherever possible in the working day/week. Teaching outside of the 8.00am-4.30pm week day hours of business is not possible. The predominantly Methodist population were not available for teaching on weekends.

An example was a young baby with a fractured leg. The traction applied by a very junior doctor was inappropriately taped to the end of the bed and so the fracture was not supported. The child had not slept for 36 hours due to the pain. The anaesthetist with the team was able to provide complete pain relief on the ward so that an appropriate plaster could be applied and the child was comfortable.

An example of a teaching case was a young boy with a hot water burn contracture of the thumb. Left untreated the deformity would become progressively worse. The basic lessons learned from this case using skin grafts and contracture release can be used to help many others as burns contractures are very common. Both patients and their families are grateful for the assistance they receive.

PLAN
The Goal over the next 5 years is to compliment the Pacific region training with an appropriate Orthopaedic Teaching programme for the Orthopaedic, Nursing and Physiotherapy departments. Regular, spaced out, bi-annual visits by POW Orthopaedic team will then be able to supplement the local Orthopaedic Surgical and Rehabilitation interventions.

It is also entirely appropriate to discuss more up to date Orthopaedic treatment methods as Fijian Orthopaedic trainees attend Newcastle, Australia for a 6 month teaching post.

An email point of contact has been established between Stuart Myers and Pauliasi. This now allows Pauliasi to email interesting and challenging cases to the POW Orthopaedic Department for discussion at their weekly Clinical and Xray meetings, and to provide advice for Fiji available treatments. A laptop will be donated to Pauliasi this year.

Prince of Wales donated obsolete Orthopaedic Traction devices and Textbooks, as well as thermoplastic splinting materials from Surgical Synergies for use in Hand patients.








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