Profile:
Karan Malhotra is an Orthopaedic consultant specialising in foot and ankle surgery. His NHS practice is based at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH) and privately he works as part of the Stanmore Foot and Ankle Specialists group at RNOH Private Care. His practice includes the full scope of adult foot and ankle surgery including complex neuromuscular conditions, deformity, tendon disorders, arthritis, plantar fasciitis, bunions, and toe deformities. The RNOH is a tertiary referral centre receiving referrals and complex cases from all over the UK and internationally.
Mr Malhotra is actively involved in numerous research projects and has several publications. He is heavily involved in educational activities, and runs quality improvement projects, both locally and nationally. He holds positions on two BOFAS national committees and his roles include developing systems for capturing patient recorded outcome measures (PROMs) on a national level and running educational webinars with a national and international audience. He has also led on a national study on effects of COVID-19 in foot and ankle surgery.
Mr Malhotra feels it is of utmost importance for patients to be involved in their care and decision making. He strives to ensure patients are given a balanced and honest opinion of all surgical and non-surgical options available to them for the treatment of their condition and that they can understand these options. In some instances, this may involve a discussion of complex cases in a multi-disciplinary setting.
Education and training:
Mr Malhotra graduated with Honours from the University of Manchester and his Orthopaedic Training was in Yorkshire and London. He has completed renowned fellowships in Foot and Ankle surgery in Melbourne, Australia and the RNOH, UK. He undertook a travelling fellowship to Singapore and was awarded a grant from the British Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society (BOFAS) for his fellowship training.
Mr Malhotra’s training in both the UK and abroad included ankle replacements, fusions, arthroscopic surgery, ligament reconstruction, minimally invasive surgery and treatment of complex neurological conditions affecting the foot and ankle. His training and current practice also includes the operative and non-operative management of conditions including bunions, toe deformities, tendon disorders, plantar fasciitis, and arthritis of the foot and ankle.
Having had the opportunity to work with some excellent and world-renowned trainers, he understands the importance of making sure every trainee reaches their maximum potential. He is therefore actively involved with training and is the lead for the junior doctor teaching programme at RNOH and runs simulation training as well. He regularly teaches on teaching programmes and exam courses.
Special interests:
- Ankle Arthritis and deformity
- Ankle Arthroscopy
- Ankle Replacements
- Flat feet deformity and tibialis posterior dysfunction
- Forefoot deformity (including bunions, arthritis, and lesser toes)
- Hindfoot arthritis and deformity
- Midfoot arthritis and deformity
- Neuromuscular foot and ankle conditions (including Charcot Marie Tooth)
- Osteochondral defects of the talus
- Plantar fasciitis
- Sports and dance injuries
- Tendon disorders
- Treatment of pes cavus (high-arched feet)
Research interests:
Mr Malhotra has always had a passion for research and (as of 2020) has over 40 peer reviewed publications, 4 book chapters / consensus documents, over 45 regional / national / international presentations and over 40 audit / quality improvement projects. He currently runs a quality improvement project to redesign patient pathways, improve efficiency, and measure outcomes.
He is actively involved in cutting edge research into novel methods of treating arthritis, deformity correction, treatment of neuromuscular disorders, and into methods for assessing foot and ankle conditions. The Stanmore Foot and Ankle Specialists group of surgeons all work closely with the Institute of Musculoskeletal Sciences affiliated with UCL where they are involved with projects aimed at improving patients care. They are currently engaged with a number of clinical studies and Mr Malhotra is an Honorary Clinical Lecturer at the Department of Ortho and MSK Science, University College London.
An up-to-date list of Mr Malhotra’s publications can be found here:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2kVzCNQAAAAJ&hl=en
Achievements/awards/publications:
Mr Malhotra has achieved numerous prizes during his career. He has won prizes for the best performance on simulation surgery during his training and won the ‘Best Research Paper’ award for his training rotation. He has also been awarded grants from the British Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society (BOFAS) for an international fellowship.
He has been successful in applying for grants for conducting research and was awarded the first prize for ‘Best International Research Paper’ by the European Foot and Ankle Society (EFAS) in 2018 for work he presented on gastrocnemius tightness. He was subsequently invited to present this work at the BOFAS congress in 2019. In 2020 Mr Malhotra was awarded the ‘Best Published Paper’ award by EFAS for work done on the ankle syndesmosis and in 2021 his work on the UK-FALCON national audit of COVID-19 in foot and ankle patient was awarded the ‘Chang Chen Best Paper award’ by the British Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society.
He currently holds positions on two national committees with BOFAS and was the first trainee to hold a position on the society committees.