I’m a consultant neuroanaesthetist at the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery (NHNN) in London, United Kingdom. NHNN is a specialist hospital delivering approximately 3200 anaesthesia cases and 900 neurocritical care admissions per year.

In March 2025, while completing my Fellowship at NHNN, I had the invaluable opportunity to spend a week with the neuro-anaesthesiology & neurocritical care team at Rigshospitalet – the largest public and teaching hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark. The neuro-anaesthesia team delivers approximately 4000 anaesthesia cases and 1000 neurocritical care admissions per year and has an ICPNT-accredited fellowship.

My visit was facilitated and supervised by Dr Martin Kryspin Sørensen, Overlæge (Consultant UK / Chief Physician US) at Rigshospitalet and Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen – thanks to a mutual connection made through SNACC/ICPNT. The Neuro Anaesthesia and Critical Care Society (NACCS-UK) provided generous financial supported for my visit as a Travelling Fellowship.

Each morning, I strolled through the Fælledparken overlooked by the large 1100-bed Rigshospitalet campus. Martin and his team shared their clinical and research experiences – allowing me to gain insights into everyday practice across neuro-oncology, neurovascular, functional neurosurgery, neuroradiology and neurocritical care. In addition, they shared ongoing academic projects in their CONICA Research Group – including multimodal monitoring of patients with severe brain injury or ketamine for cortical spreading depolarisation. I also shared my own experiences of training, Fellowship and neuro-anaesthesia in the UK with the team at Rigshospitalet.

Beyond the specifics of neuro-anaesthesia, I gained in-depth insights into a different model of healthcare:

1. The system was built on high levels of trust – within teams, between patients and healthcare professionals, and throughout wider society. Trust empowered teams to work with a shared mental model and similar perspective on events. The Danish model of anaesthesia delivery involves both physician and nurse anaesthesiologists – which differs from the UK model of almost solely physician-delivered care. This model represents a different challenge where Danish physicians maintain oversight of several clinical areas but allows greater flexibility to run preoperative assessment clinics while cases continued in theatre.
2. The system felt highly efficient and ergonomic across the perioperative pathway. There were many tiny efficiencies which added to make the day flow smoothly. Time from door-to-groin puncture for mechanical thrombectomy was impressive – supported by a comprehensive stroke network and pathway prioritising rapid treatment for ischaemic stroke. Everyone received total intravenous anaesthesia and most cases followed an enhanced recovery protocol which simplified processes and reduced variation between cases, patients and providers. The rhythm of the day involved operating from 08:00-15:00, and the anaesthesiologists met together every morning for teaching and every afternoon to review the next day’s cases.
3. On the foundations of efficiency and trust, the system was pragmatic and flexible – emergency cases were slotted in fluidly and team members supported each other with quiet seamless efficiency. A typical work week for anaesthesiologists is 37 hours and at Rigshospitalet, senior physicians remain resident on-call.

I’ve visited Copenhagen several times but made the most of the city’s art and museum culture, food and pastry offerings, a documentary film festival and an exhibition about patient-centred hospital design for the city’s new children’s hospital.  I also hopped across to an ocean-side sauna in Malmö before flying home.

My visit to Copenhagen also fell at a time of personal and professional reflection as I complete my Fellowship and training (residency) before starting a Consultant job later this year. I cannot thank Martin, his family and his colleagues enough for their warm welcome and look forward to future collaborations and friendship!