The evening
The Queensland Hand Surgery Society held a scientific evening in July 2015, with guest speaker Dr David McCombe of Melbourne. Dr Cutbush gave the welcoming remarks as society president.
The topics were the medial femoral condyle free flap for scaphoid fractures, and the management of recalcitrant peripheral nerve compression. Both presentations were well received.
The Queensland Hand Surgery Society
The Queensland Hand Surgery Society brings together surgeons in Queensland who treat conditions of the hand, wrist and upper limb. Hand surgery sits across orthopaedic and plastic surgery, and a state society gives surgeons from both backgrounds a regular forum. Scientific evenings of this kind are where members present cases and research, hear an invited speaker, and discuss how a particular problem is being managed in different units.
The two topics
The scaphoid is a small bone in the wrist with a limited blood supply, which is why some scaphoid fractures fail to join. A medial femoral condyle free flap takes a small piece of bone, with its own blood vessels still attached, from the inner side of the knee and transfers it to the wrist, where the vessels are joined to vessels in the arm under the microscope. The transferred bone therefore arrives with its own blood supply rather than depending on the surrounding bone to supply it. It is a demanding option used in selected cases. Individual results vary.
Peripheral nerve compression is where a nerve is squeezed somewhere along its course, causing numbness, pain or weakness in the area it supplies. Carpal tunnel syndrome is the most familiar example. Recalcitrant cases are those that persist or return after treatment, and they are a recognised difficulty in hand surgery because the reasons can include scarring, an incomplete release, or compression at a second site further along the nerve.
Why a society invites outside speakers
An invited speaker from another state brings methods and case material that the local group has not seen, and is more likely to be asked direct questions than a familiar colleague. For techniques that are performed in only a few centres, an evening of this kind may be the main way surgeons elsewhere learn what the operation actually involves and which patients it suits.
Related information
See also our posts on the QHSS meeting in 2016 and the QHSS Annual Scientific Meeting.