A Letter of Thanks by Diaa Othman

Dear Mr Riaz

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your tremendous efforts on organising my overseas clinical fellowship in Plastic surgery to Pakistan, for the three months period between March and June 2019.

Under your kind recommendation, this fellowship was financially sponsored by OPSA for the three months with five hundred pounds a month. It was well planned and organised where you have communicated with Professor Moazzam Tarar in Jinnah Burns, and Reconstruction Centre in Lahore to provide the room accommodation, which was at high standards meeting professional needs.

A cleft camp in Kashmir with Gujrat cleft hospital team

The fellowship has included two main components, which are the major trauma and free soft tissue reconstruction at Jinnah Hospital, and the Cleft surgery component, at CLAPP hospital in Lahore with Professor Ghulam Fayyaz. I have in total performed more than 300 cases, including major reconstructions, cleft lip and palate surgery and other aspects of general plastic surgery. Moreover, I stayed in connection with Cleft hospital at Gujrat and attended the lists over the weekend. Cleft camps I have attended included Baden, Hyderabad, Jacobabad and Dera Ismail Khan. I also had the pleasure in visiting Kashmir with the Gujrat team for our cleft camp and recruited patients for cleft surgery in Gujrat.

I attended PAPSCON (Pakistan association of Plastic Surgery Conference) in Karachi during my visit where I presented to interesting pieces of your pioneer work; one on composite R face and neck lift, and the other on Gujrat technique for cleft septorhinoplasty, where both where highly appreciated by the organising bodies and attending delegates.

An integral part of the fellowship was the convenient accommodation organised at Jinnah Plastic Surgery Trauma Centre in Lahore, under the care of Professor Moazzam Tarar, which was within the building of the plastic and burn surgery unit, proving an excellent opportunity to stay in contact with the team all the time optimising all clinical opportunities, and within a walking distance from the Cleft lip and palate hospital where I performed the cleft surgeries with Professor Ghulam Fayyaz.

Left: Theatre nursing staff & outpatient clinics
Right: Performing microsurgery in Jinnah Trauma Center,

Lahore

I would like to thank you indeed for this outstanding experience you have thoroughly organised for me, which was extremely rewarding at all aspects possible; clinical, professional and social. I meet many colleagues and seniors and learnt a lot from them, things I would never expect to have learnt there, and most importantly, the generous culture that accommodated me and made me feel at home. There were social and cultural components to the trip; including visiting Islamabad and Kashmir.

This was definitely the most interesting period of my career and has given me indeed a lot of confidence to peruse my future career in plastic surgery and cleft lip and palate subspecialty in it, and in particular, in the Middle East trying to help people in less fortunate circumstances. Thank you for being my tutor for the last 6 years, and continuously supporting and guiding me on my career pathway.

Your Sincerely

Diaa Othman