The meeting
The Queensland Hand Surgery Society held an evening scientific meeting on 28 July 2016. Dr Cutbush is the society's president.
Dr Jason Harvey, a Melbourne surgeon, was the invited speaker, covering the management of lunotriquetral instability and the arthroscopic management of basal joint arthritis.
Pictured are Ken Cutbush, QHSS President, Jason Harvey, guest speaker, and Randy Bindra, QHSS Secretary.
What an evening scientific meeting is
Specialty societies run two kinds of meeting. The annual scientific meeting is a multi-day affair with a full programme. Evening meetings are the other half of the year: a few hours after work, usually a single invited speaker and a handful of case presentations, attended by surgeons who all work within driving distance of each other.
The smaller format is useful for a reason that has little to do with the lectures. The surgeons in the room are the people who will be referred each other's difficult cases, who cover each other's patients on leave, and who will be asked for a second opinion. Meeting regularly, and arguing about management in front of each other, is how a local group of specialists arrives at a reasonably consistent approach. A visiting speaker from another state keeps that from becoming insular.
The topics covered
Lunotriquetral instability involves the ligaments between two of the small carpal bones on the little finger side of the wrist. Those bones normally move together as a unit, and when the ligaments holding them are injured or stretched the bones shift against one another, which produces pain on the ulnar side of the wrist, sometimes with a clunk. It can be difficult to diagnose, because the symptoms overlap with several other causes of wrist pain on that side, and management ranges from splinting and hand therapy through to surgical reconstruction depending on the severity.
Basal joint arthritis affects the joint at the base of the thumb, where the thumb metacarpal meets the trapezium bone in the wrist. It is a common site for arthritis, and because the thumb is involved in almost every grip, it tends to interfere with daily tasks such as opening jars and turning keys. Treatment begins with splints, hand therapy, activity change and sometimes injection. Where surgery is considered, several operations exist, and the arthroscopic approaches Dr Harvey covered work through small incisions with a camera rather than opening the joint. Individual results vary.
Related information
- Our post on the QHSS Annual Scientific Meeting.
- The shoulder surgery page covers the upper limb work of the practice.
- The research page describes the unit's current studies.
- The consultation page explains the referral process.