Musculoskeletal / Orthopaedics
The musculoskeletal discipline encompasses rheumatology, metabolic bone disease and orthopaedic surgery. We are one of the busiest units in the UK and have particular expertise in several areas including inflammatory arthritis and multisystem inflammatory disease; osteoporosis; and joint replacement, spinal and paediatric orthopaedic surgery.
We also house the North of England Bone and Soft Tissue Tumour Service. Our staff regularly contribute to national policy setting and guidelines. A particular interest is education for doctors and medical students and we have developed DVDs demonstrating musculoskeletal examination techniques, that are provided to all medical students in the UK and, increasingly, overseas.
We have a thriving research programme, being integrated with the university’s Musculoskeletal Research Group (Institute of Cellular Medicine). Much of our research has a clinical focus, such as the immunomodulation of refractory inflammation, development of improved joint replacements, and use of ultrasound to image the joints. Our excellent clinical facilities at the Freeman Hospital Musculoskeletal Unit are complemented by state-of-the-art clinical and translational research facilities at the Clinical Research Facility and Wilson Horne Immunotherapy Centre.
Excellent clinical and academic training opportunities exist. We have an Academic Clinical Fellow programme in both rheumatology and orthopaedics and a number of externally funded clinical research fellows. Much of our research is cross-disciplinary, eg with colleagues in the Institute for Ageing and Health, nanoLAB and the Institute of Health and Society, providing projects ranging from the sociological to the molecular.
Contact for Musculoskeletal / Orthopaedics:
Professor John Isaacs
j.d.isaacs@ncl.ac.uk
