Some streets you know before you have ever set foot on them. For a doctor, Harley Street is one of those.
Since the nineteenth century, this street in the heart of London has been the address of British medicine. Behind the classic façades of red brick and white stucco, with their black doors and brass nameplates, sit hundreds of clinics, specialists and practices. To have a nameplate here is to belong somewhere. It is a street where the tradition of the doctor’s bag still stands alongside the latest ultrasound equipment, and where patients travel from all over the world.
And at number 66 is the London Cartilage Clinic of Prof. Paul Y.F. Lee.
Why London?
In Rotterdam and Dordrecht I have been treating knees with orthobiologic injections for years: High-Dose PRP, Arthrosamid and, more recently, ChondroFiller. The latter comes with a technique in which the gel is placed very precisely inside the joint under ultrasound guidance, without arthroscopy. There are not many physicians in Europe who do it that way, and Prof. Lee is one of them.
So I did what I most enjoy doing as a doctor: I went to watch someone who has been doing it longer than I have.
Walking Harley Street
I will be honest: on the first morning I simply took a walk. Up from Cavendish Square, past the doors with their nameplates, to Regent’s Park and back again. When you spend your days in a treatment room in Rotterdam, it is a special feeling to walk as a colleague through the epicentre of London medicine. Not as a tourist, but as someone who knows what happens behind those doors, and who is about to step inside a few of them for several days.
What struck me most was how ordinary it all is. Between the nameplates of cardiologists and plastic surgeons, a courier hurries past with blood samples, a corner café is full of doctors in suits, and a nurse cycles by with a backpack. It is a street that works.
At Prof. Lee’s clinic
Prof. Lee is an orthopaedic surgeon and one of the best-known names in Europe when it comes to cartilage. His clinic is a place where patients from across the United Kingdom and beyond come for treatments not yet offered elsewhere.
During my visits I was able to sit in on consultations and observe treatments. I will not go into detail about what exactly I saw; that is something between a doctor, his patients and his guest. But I can say there are few things as valuable as standing next to an experienced colleague, watching the ultrasound image move, and being able to ask, between patients, the questions you will not find in any textbook.
What I take home is not only technique. It is also the way Prof. Lee talks with his patients: calm, honest about what is and is not possible, and always asking what someone actually wants to do with their knee. I recognise that, and it strengthens the way I work in Rotterdam and Dordrecht.
What it means for you
Since my visits to London I offer ChondroFiller at my practice in Dordrecht, using the same ultrasound-guided technique. No surgery, no hospital stay, a treatment of around an hour.
And honestly: the connection with London does not end at the front door of number 66. Colleagues who know each other call each other. When I have doubts about a knee, I know whom to message.
That is perhaps the finest thing about a street like Harley Street. It is not a museum. It is a network. And it is a pleasure, as a doctor from South Holland, to be a small part of it.
Would you like to know whether ChondroFiller or another treatment is right for your knee? Get in touch via doktermulder.nl or call +31 10 411 2763 for an appointment in Rotterdam or Dordrecht.
Björn Mulder, MD Orthopaedic Medicine
