A fellow tells his story 2016 to present

Since the beginning of my residency in orthopaedic surgery in Italy, I have developed a great passion for arthroscopy and sports medicine and I have always been fascinated about Capio Artro Clinic and Karolinska Institutet. They have a great and old tradition in this field.

I have had the fortune to train under a great knee surgeon, Prof. Giuliano Cerulli, my mentor in Perugia. So, when I was attending my 4th year of orthopaedic residency I haven’t hesitated to ask him to send me to Capio Artro Clinic for a fellowship. Then, I have been awarded of two scholarships at the University of Perugia and in the cold february 2016 I arrived in Stockholm! I was really excited for this new experience and I had studied a lot before coming to Sweden feeling the weight of the place where I was going.

My first day at the clinic I met Anna Pappas, Björn Engström and Karin Hallin (my first mentor here in Sweden). They, with all the doctors, welcomed me and made me feel at home during all my stay.

During my time at Capio Artro Clinic I had the great opportunity to follow an incredible volume of operations gaining great experience especially in knee surgery. All the doctors have spent with me a lot of time explaining me all the procedures and making themselves available for all my questions.

Here, I have also met Anders Stålman. He has given me great enthusiasm for the research and I have started several research projects with him. We have presented the results of two projects at ISAKOS in Shanghai, where one of them has been selected as finalist for a very prestigious prize and later has been published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. Thanks to Anders I have also had the opportunity to visit two times the Department of Orthopaedics/Sahlgrenska Academy in Goteborg establishing an important research collaboration that led to a very interesting article published in KSSTA, and there are still several projects ongoing.

Today I am continuing my Swedish experience, Anders is my principal PhD supervisor at Karolinska Institute and a friend together with all the doctors at Capio Artro Clinic. It is difficult to describe in a few lines my time in Sweden but if I can summarize it has been one of the most exciting periods of my life!

UPDATE - Riccardo Cristiani defended his thesis and received his PhD in dec 2021. He is now working as an orthopaedic surgeon at Capio Artro Clinic.