Meet our speaker: Dr Madhavi Vindlacheruvu

Fragility fractures and bone health: changing times for core services

Dr Madhavi Vindlacheruvu, Consultant Orthogeriatrician, Cambridge

At the conference, Dr Vindlacheruvu will be discussing the following:

• How osteoporosis services can be rebuilt and reset following the Covid-19 crisis
• The role of primary and secondary care in delivering care in the community
• Management of complex cases
• The role of Fracture Liaison Services
• The importance of managing falls risk

Speaker spotlight

Why did you choose to become a healthcare professional?

At school I was always fascinated by science, especially biology. I chose to study medicine with a true desire to apply my knowledge and skills to help care for people. Now, as a consultant, I enjoy promoting health, treating illness and feel lucky to be learning, teaching, mentoring and working alongside amazing colleagues.

What is your biggest achievement in medicine?

Establishing the fragility fracture service and fracture liaison service at Addenbrookes hospital.

What are the most important lessons we need to learn from the Covid-19 pandemic?

The value of strong team work and support. Covid-19 affected everyone in society. Within our Trust there was major restructuring of services and redeployment of staff and many of us were required to adopt new ways of working. For example, our fracture liaison service transformed to remote fragility fracture identification and telephone consultations. We were able to make these changes due to our computerised medical records and this highlights the value of digital technology.

What do you think will be the biggest challenge for our ageing population?

As a geriatrician, I have been particularly saddened to regularly witness the devastating effects of social isolation and loneliness amongst our ageing population.

If you could change one thing about the NHS, what would it be?

It is vital for the NHS to recognise and promote health, wellbeing and exercise for everyone, rather than focusing on disease. Prevention is better than cure!

Why is it so important that we discuss osteoporosis at our conference?

We need to discuss osteoporosis as it is very common. We know that one in two women and one in five men break a bone after the age of 50 years. It is expensive as hip fractures cost over £1.1 billion and fragility fractures are life changing to individual patients. However, many fragility fractures could be prevented by timely interventions to reduce fracture risk and we know that our interventions are effective.

Biography

Dr Madhavi Vindlacheruvu graduated and trained in general medicine and geriatric medicine in Cambridge. She was appointed as the first consultant ortho-geriatrician in Addenbrookes hospital, Cambridge in June 2006. She is the clinical lead for ortho-geriatrics and has developed the service over the last 16 years. Her clinical work involves optimisation of patients aged 60 and older with fragility fractures prior to emergency orthopaedic surgery, medication reviews, assessment and modification of risk factors for falls and osteoporosis and proactive discharge planning.

She is actively involved in the teaching and training of postgraduate medical staff, undergraduates, nurses and other professions allied to medicine. The holistic and person-centred approach of geriatric medicine allows her to understand the complexity of older patients and the fact that there is no ‘typical’ patient. She is the Trust lead for the National Hip Fracture Database and Fracture Liaison Service and is passionate about improving bone health in all patients through education, lifestyle changes and pharmacological treatment.

To find out more about our annual conference, Health and ageing in post Covid NHS, please visit our events page.

This conference is accredited with six CPD points.

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