World-leading ultrasound specialist shares expertise at North Tees

A specialist whose work in endoscopic ultrasound is known internationally has spent time with clinicians at the University Hospital of North Tees, bringing advanced teaching into the hospital’s gastroenterology unit.

Professor Hassan Okasha, from Cairo, joined University Hospitals Tees staff for a focused workshop combining lectures, discussion and live-streamed clinical cases. The visit gave doctors a chance to learn directly from an expert in a field that plays an important part in diagnosing and assessing serious digestive diseases.

A close view from inside the body

Endoscopic ultrasound, usually shortened to EUS, combines a flexible endoscope with ultrasound technology. It allows clinicians to create detailed images from inside the digestive tract, placing the scan close to organs and tissues that can be difficult to assess from outside the body.

The technique can help teams investigate conditions affecting the pancreas, bile ducts and upper digestive system. It is also used when staging some cancers, helping doctors understand the extent of disease and plan the most suitable next steps. Like any highly specialised procedure, its value depends on experienced staff interpreting what they see and knowing when to take samples or carry out an intervention.

The North Tees programme included teaching on hepatopancreatobiliary work, covering the liver, pancreas and biliary system, as well as oesophago-gastric cancer staging. Live cases were shared with the workshop so participants could connect the principles discussed in the lecture room with real clinical decision-making.

Learning shared across borders

Professor Vikram Mitra and colleagues welcomed Professor Okasha to the Tees hospital. For the local team, the visit was a chance to compare practice, ask detailed questions and bring an international perspective into their continuing professional development.

That exchange is useful because medicine changes through a mixture of research, formal guidance and clinicians sharing what works. A workshop does not by itself prove that patient outcomes have changed, but it can sharpen skills and encourage teams to review the way they approach complex cases.

It also places North Tees within a wider professional network. Hosting a recognised specialist is not only about hearing a guest lecture. The live element lets staff examine technique and judgement in context, while the visiting clinician sees the expertise already present in the local service.

Patients are unlikely to meet the workshop participants as a group or hear the technical discussion behind a scan. They may, however, benefit from a clinical team that keeps learning and testing its practice against expertise from elsewhere.

The teaching covered both image interpretation and the judgement surrounding a procedure. Knowing that a structure can be sampled is different from deciding when a sample is useful, how it may alter treatment and what risks need to be considered. Those questions make case-based learning particularly valuable, because participants can hear the reasoning that sits between a scan and a recommendation.

That reasoning is where specialist experience is hardest to replace.

For a district serving communities across Stockton, Hartlepool and the wider Tees area, bringing that calibre of teaching into the hospital is a quiet but worthwhile investment in local care.