A hand surgeon is a physician specially trained in a hand fellowship program. This specific training is above and beyond the minimal experience gained in orthopedic, plastic or general surgery residency programs.
You should ask the doctor this important question: “Have you been trained in a hand fellowship program?”
A hand fellowship program includes microvascular training, which gives the hand surgeon expertise to reattach amputated extremities at the arm, forearm, wrist, hand or finger level. Hand surgeons treat all upper extremity problems including broken bones, injuries, carpal tunnel, other nerve entrapment problems of the upper extremities – as well as many other problems specific to the hand. See “Beyond Carpal Tunnel – Winning treatments for other problems.”
You get the most benefit from hand surgeons’ skills at the onset of a problem. As hand surgeons, we prefer to be involved with an injury from the very beginning rather than have a non-hand surgeon care for you first, then come to us for reconstructive surgery when complications arise. We do, however, see a great number of patients whom have had previous surgical interventions and have been under appropriate care.
The human hand is unique. Nowhere else in the body is there such an amazing and complex functioning of bones, joints, muscles, tendons, nerves, blood vessels and skin as your hand. The proper function and balance of all these elements is required for your hand to function to its full potential. Restoring maximal function is the goal of our specialists in treating hand injuries and diseases.
Hand surgeons are trained in orthopedics, neurosurgery, vascular surgery, microvascular surgery and plastic surgery specifically for your upper extremities. Yet the knowledge of any one of these specialties alone is not enough to deliver state-of-the-art care. Hand surgeons understand how all of these different parts must function together – in balance and harmony.
The field of hand surgery developed during World War II when Dr. Sterling Bunnell was assigned to care for wartime hand injuries. He quickly realized that it was much more beneficial to have one surgeon with extensive knowledge, training and expertise in hand and upper extremity treatment, instead of calling on an orthopedic surgeon to treat the bone injury; a general or vascular surgeon to treat injuries to blood vessels; a neurosurgeon to treat the nerve injury; and a plastic surgeon to treat the soft tissue damage.
This concept is as true today as it was in 1945. Dr. Bunnell perhaps said it best: “To recondition these members successfully is difficult. Surgical reconstruction of the hand requires special careful technique. It is a composite problem requiring the correlation of various specialties – orthopedic, plastic, neurologic surgery – the knowledge of any one of which alone is inadequate for repairing the hand. As the problem is composite the surgeon must also be. The surgeon must face the situation and equip himself to handle any and all of the tissues of the limb.”
That “special careful technique” is a defining characteristic of the surgeons at The Brown Hand Center.
