History
The historical context for the three qualifying fields is that both plastic surgery and orthopedic surgery are more recent branches off the general surgery main trunk. Modern hand surgery began in World War II as a military planning decision. US Army Surgeon General, Major General Norman T. Kirk, knew that hand injuries in World War I had poor outcomes in part because there was no formal system to deal with them. Kirk also knew that his civilian general surgical colleague Dr. Sterling Bunnell had a special interest and experience in hand reconstruction. Kirk tapped Bunnell to train military surgeons in the management of hand injuries to treat the war casualties, and at that time hand surgery became a formal specialty.
Orthopedic surgeons continued to develop special techniques to manage small bones, as found in the wrist and hand. Pioneering plastic surgeons developed microsurgical techniques for repairing the small nerves and arteries of the hand. Surgeons from all three specialties have contributed to the development of techniques for repairing tendons and managing a broad range of acute and chronic hand injuries. Hand surgery incorporates techniques from orthopaedics, plastic surgery, general surgery, neurosurgery, vascular and microvascular surgery and psychiatry.
In a few countries such as Sweden, Finland and Singapore, hand surgery is recognized as a clinical specialty in its own right, with a formal four to six years hand surgery resident training program. Hand surgeons going through these programs are trained in all aspects of hand surgery, combining and mastering all the skills traditionally associated with "Orthopedic hand surgeons" and "Plastic hand surgeons" to become equally adept at handling tendon, ligament and bone injuries as well as microsurgical reconstruction such as reattachment of severed parts or free tissue transfers and transplants.
Read more about this topic: Hand Surgery
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—David Hume (1711–1776)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)