Your guide to find a Hand Surgeon
What is Hand Surgery?
Hand Surgery is a dedicated subspecialty dealing with various problems of Hand, wrist, Tendons, Nerves & upper limb as a whole.
Who is a Hand Surgeon?
Hand Surgeons are Orthopaedic or Plastic Surgeons who have obtained further training in surgery of the Hand. Occasionally a General Surgeon too can obtain a certified training in Hand Surgery.
What special skills does a Hand Surgeon possess?
By virtue of training in Hand Surgery, a Hand surgeon is expected to have skills in Fracture Fixation, Tendon & Nerve Surgery (tendon repair & tendon transfer), Microsurgery, wrist Arthroscopy. Some of the Hand Surgeons specialize as wrist Surgeon.
What conditions are treated by Hand Surgeons?
A trained hand surgeon is expected t be effective in treating following conditions:
- Fractures & Dislocations in the Hand & Wrist & their consequences. To list a few Distal End Radius Fractures (DER), Scaphoid Fracture, Scaphoid Nonunion, SLAC (Scapho Lunate Advanced Collapse) & SNAC (Scaphoid Nonunion Advanced Collapse) wrist, Peri lunate Dislocations, Bennet’s Fracture (Thumb Base Fracture)
- Ligament Injuries like Scapho Lunate ligament injury, Carpal Instability, Stener’s Lesion (UCL of thumb), Volar plate injury
- Sports injury: Fracture Dislocation of PIP joint, Mallet Finger, Jersey Finger
- Nerve Injuries: Brachial Plexus Injury (adult & birth), Wrist Drop, Nerve Grafting, Peripheral nerve repair, nerve transfer
- Nerve entrapment: Carpal Tunnel syndrome (open or endoscopic carpal tunnel release, ECTR), Cubital Tunnel Release
- Reconstruction: Skin Grafting, Flap surgery, Free Flap, replantation following amputation of fingers, limb; vascularized and nonvascularized bone grafting, toe transfer
- Deformity Correction: Malunited Fractures, Contractures, Radial Club Hand, Madelung Deformity, Contractures following burns, Cerebral Palsy, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Dupuytren’s Contracture
- Congenital conditions: Syndactyly, macrodactyly, thumb hypoplasia (pollicization)
- Degenerative Conditions: arthritis, Kienbock’s Disease, thumb Basal joint arthritis (1st CMC Arthritis), Trigger Finger, DeQuervains Disease
Does a Hand Surgeon treat painful wrist?
Yes, a Hand surgeon specializes in treating diseases of the wrist. He/She employs various techniques to treat painful wrist e.g. Wrist Arthroscopy, Ligament Repair & Reconstruction, Proximal Row Carpectomy (PRC), Limited Carpal Fusion (Four Corner fusion), wrist arthrodesis.
Does a Hand Surgeon do “Plastic Surgery”?
Training of a hand surgeon involves techniques in plastic surgery like microsurgery, skin grafting, flap surgery, free flaps. Though a Hand Surgeon may or may not deal with other part of plastic Surgery (face, body sculpting, breast, nose surgery), he/she is able to apply all the techniques of plastic surgery to hand and upper limb surgery.