Michael Amini, M.D.’s AANA Traveling Fellowship: “The Grand Finale” of Experiences

Being introduced and welcomed into the AANA Traveling Fellowship family was highly rewarding for Michael Amini, M.D., as he feels this was his most noteworthy experience of his AANA career thus far.

While Dr. Amini learned a variety of new surgical skills and techniques during the three different site visits he traveled to on his journey, it was learning new arthroscopic techniques coupled with the activities he participated in outside the operating room that he found most memorable.

What he greatly admired were the final events at each of the site visits. The “grand finale,” per se, of the first site visit in Jackson, Mississippi, was the extravagant dinner at a lake house owned by Larry Field, M.D. The current AANA President afforded the Traveling Fellows an evening that was filled with fine food and established friendships.  

“As Traveling Fellows, we all got along really well and bonded very quickly,” Dr. Amini recalls. “Which was pretty impressive considering all of us came from diverse backgrounds.”

The second site visit in Winston-Salem, North Carolina proved to be equally as insightful and extravagant. Dr. Amini was able to spend some quality time in one of Wake Forest University’s operating rooms with host Brian Waterman, M.D., watching intently as he performed a medial patellofemoral ligament reconstruction with an osteochondral fracture repair, an arthroscopic Bankart, a posterior capsulorrhaphy and subpectoral tenodesis and a meniscectomy.

His time in Winston-Salem concluded with Gary Poehling, M.D. hosting the Traveling Fellows at his historic greenhouse that he renovated himself. He then proceeded to treat Dr. Amini and the other Traveling Fellows to a fine meal prepared onsite by renowned chef Charles Paynter.

But the Traveling Fellowship journey didn’t end there. After hearing and learning from host Kevin Farmer, M.D. and others who are considered leaders in sports medicine at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, Dr. Amini and the other Traveling Fellows were able to enjoy the thrilling experience of riding an airboat along the open marshlands of the Suwannee River. Truly the ultimate “grand finale” of all three site visits, Dr. Amini would not be able to look back on such an experience if it were not for the AANA Traveling Fellowship.

To further conclude an already enriching opportunity, the Traveling Fellowship ended at the AANA Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida, the “grand finale” of the entire experience. Dr. Amini not only had the exclusive privilege to attend the President’s Reception where he was able to reconnect with his hosts from the three educational sites, but he was also able to share tales of his adventure with the audience at Residents and Fellows Day.

“I was actually surprised at how much additional knowledge on a variety of techniques I gained at each site,” Dr. Amini admits. “Being a Traveling Fellow really exposed me to so many new techniques I’ll now be able to apply to my everyday practice.”