Interview with Fabio Sorelli

Having worked on projects internationally, what country has the best hospitals?

Every country has its own peculiarities and it often depends on the budget. From the projects I’ve worked on, I’ve been particularly impressed by the Gulf region for the extremely high level of finishing material and top end medical equipment. They spare no expense.

What’s the most impressive hospital you’ve visited?

The Nyt OUH University Hospital in Denmark where I’ve worked on was very impressive in terms of scale. There is also a railway running through it!

What advancement in technology have you been most impressed with over the past 10 years?

The rapid development of digital connectivity and integration of medical equipment and the use of surgical robotics, in particular how quickly the latter have become an everyday clinical application.

What’s the most complicated piece of medical equipment have you had to install?

Probably an intra-operative MRI suite with a ceiling mounted sliding MRI. The scale of the installation and the coordination of multidisciplinary activities was quite challenging.

Amongst a long list of challenges, a quenching event happened after the building was commissioned, which is a rapid loss of superconductivity of the MRI magnet, associated with rapid helium boil-off and a significant reduction in the static magnetic field. That added an extra level of complexity since, when this happens, an immediate procedure for refilling the helium must be deployed to prevent permanent damage to the very costly equipment. It all ended well, of course, but it focused the mind.

If could give clinicians and doctors one piece of advice when it comes to choosing their next piece of kit, what would you say?

Always prioritise functional/operational requirements over latest fancy technology not to end up with buying a costly kit without the capacity to amortize the costs and deploy an efficient workflow.

When you’re not working, what do you enjoy doing?

Spending time with family. I enjoy exercising (running, gym), reading literature. I’m particularly fond of Saul Bellow’s novels or Julio Cortázar and I love Russian literature.

I also play electric bass guitar with my band. We’re called Rewind.

You recently moved to the UK from Malaysia, have you discovered any great places in the town where you live?

I’ve discovered a nice Italian pizzeria called Rudy’s (sorry, I’m a bit biased).

You’re born and raised in Italy, what’s your favourite Italian dish?

This is a very hard question since, outside of the usual stereotypes, Italian food is very diverse depending on which region you go and from north to south. So, in short… I don’t know, I’ve yet so much to discover!