Personal profile
Mr Palan originally qualified as a doctor from the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, University of London in 2000 and also gained a 1st class BSc (honours) degree from University College London in Immunology and Cell Pathology. He has won numerous academic prizes including the Prankerd-Jones Prize in Immunology and Cell Pathology and was awarded the Professor Joe Harper Plate (East Midlands (South) Deanery Trauma and Orthopaedics), which is presented to the outstanding Specialist Registrar in the training programme who has gone above and beyond.
His initial basic surgical training was in Oxford and Swindon and he went on to become a Specialist Registrar in Trauma and Orthopaedics in the East Midlands (Leicester). Mr Palan was also awarded his PhD at the University of Leicester, studying the reasons why some patients have a poorer result after their hip or knee replacements compared to others and looking at using wearable sensors to monitor activity levels and sleep in patients having hip or knee replacements. He has undertaken specialist fellowship training in hip and knee replacements at world renowned institutions with some of the best hip and knee surgeons in the UK, including Nottingham, Coventry and Oxford, where he specialised in the management of rare bone and soft tissue cancers (sarcomas) and complex hip and knee surgery. He has also been on travelling fellowships to the USA (Boston) and Canada, visiting world famous hip and knee surgeons in Vancouver and at Mount Sinai hospital in Toronto on a British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) fellowship award.
Mr Palan's academic interests include outcomes of primary and revision hip and knee replacement surgery and he has been awarded national research grants to run and coordinate research studies. He served as an Associate Editor on the editorial board of the BJJ (2012-2016). He has over 30 peer reviewed publications in this field and has co-authored several textbooks in orthopaedics. Mr Palan was appointed National Joint Registry (NJR) fellow in 2014 and spent that year looking at the outcomes of partial knee replacements and the risk of a periprosthetic fracture around hip replacements.
He has a strong interest in helping develop the profession and his time as President of the British Orthopaedic Trainees Association and sitting on the RCS England Council and BOA Council has given him valuable insight into strategies for promoting and enhancing T&O as a specialty and an understanding of the challenges of clinical leadership. Mr Palan has recently been awarded the British Hip Society (BHS) sponsorship for the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) Future Leaders Programme for 2021. The BOA’s vision for the Future Leaders Programme is to create an alumnus of leaders with the skills and knowledge to improve the delivery of clinical care and to influence positive change within the profession. He is also currently part of the British Association for Surgery of the Knee (BASK) working group into knee replacement surgery working on producing national recommendations and guidelines into all aspects of knee replacement surgery for the UK.
He has a passion for medical education and regularly undertake teaching for medical students to specialist registrars all the way to senior trainees or fellows who are about to become consultants in their own right. He teaches on a number of courses including ATLS (trauma courses) and Orthopaedic Research UK (ORUK) revision courses. He regularly lectures at international and national conferences as well as on professional development webinars on hip and knee topics.
Mr Palan's clinical practice is evenly split with 50% involving knee and 50% involving hip replacement surgery and he is considered a high-volume hip and knee surgeon. He is exploring novel methods of using robotic and computer navigation surgery in order to optimise patient outcomes after surgery and is especially interested in the evolving role of wearable sensors in order to provide personalised and round the clock delivery of pre and post-operative physiotherapy rehabilitation programme. In particular, Mr Palan believes that a large majority of patients could have their hip or knee replacement surgery done as a day case procedure which has been shown to lead to better patient satisfaction and outcomes. His patient feedback is extremely positive, and he endeavours to provide a personalised, kind and professional service for all of his patients, in order to achieve the very best outcomes for them. He believes this starts when he first meets his patients, in order to develop a strong and trusting professional relationship, treating others as he or his family would wish to be treated.
In his spare time, Mr Palan enjoys spending as much time with his young but growing family, being outdoors and really exploring the fantastic Yorkshire countryside. He is a keen sportsman, having taken part in a number of triathlons and loves football, rugby, golf and tennis. He has a passion for cooking and music and believes that the best surgeons are those who have a happy and healthy work life balance.
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