Bristol Cleft Fellowship
For nearly 40 years, Craniofacial Australia is committed to transforming lives by providing care and support for patients, educating surgeons of the future and investing in research for a brighter future.
Craniofacial Australia offers a Fellowship with the Bristol Cleft Collective. Funded by Craniofacial Australia, this gives doctors the opportunity to receive specialised training at South West Cleft Services Bristol (UK), in the complete range of cleft lip and palate surgery.
Project Overview
The Fellowship is providing training in all aspects of cleft care, ranging from the management of cleft lip and palate, speech surgery, alveolar bone graft, orthognathic surgery, rhinoplasty and other soft tissue procedures.
During the Fellowship, important research will also be undertaken in conjunction with the Cleft Collective, investigating:
- Syndromes associated with Pierre Robin sequence
- The use of perioperative antibiotics at the time of cleft palate repair in relation to the rate of postoperative fistula development.
- Validating preoperative cleft palate measurements from the Surgical Form
2023 Bristol Cleft Fellow Dr Nitisha Naryan:
"I have been very fortunate to be appointed as a Fellow in Cleft Lip and Palate surgery with Southwest Cleft service at Bristol UK and the Cleft Collective with the support of Craniofacial Australia. I have had an incredible overall experience in the unit and made some good friends along the way.
The surgical experience consisted of very useful hands-on experience repairing clefts on the lip and palate, speech surgery, alveolar bone grafts, jaw surgery and cleft rhinoplasty. This has given me a lot of confidence in preparing for my career in cleft surgery. The clinical work consisted of going to multi-disciplinary clinics, speech investigation clinics, alveolar bone graft planning and orthognathic clinics and operating theatre activity three times a week. The southwest is a massive region and I was grateful to be involved in a wide variety of complex clinical scenarios.
The team is friendly, and I felt very welcome and comfortable approaching them with any doubts or questions. I was grateful to have been part of the Cleft Collective, the largest cohort of children and families associated with cleft. I have presented my research projects at several scientific meetings, both national and international and received excellent feedback. I’m in the process of consolidating my research projects and writing them up for at least 4 publications.
Finally, Bristol is a fascinating city, teeming with art and culture, amazing food and super interesting people! I am incredibly grateful to Craniofacial Australia for this opportunity and would like to thank all the generous donors for supporting this charity".
Pictured below: Dr Nitisha Narayan and Prof. David David AC
