The annual scientific meeting
At the Queensland Hand Surgery Society (QHSS) Annual Scientific Meeting, with Shireen Senewiratne, president, and Randy Bindra, outgoing secretary.
A good scientific meeting, and good to catch up.
About the Queensland Hand Surgery Society
The Queensland Hand Surgery Society is a state based specialty society for surgeons with an interest in surgery of the hand and upper limb. Societies of this kind sit alongside the formal training and regulatory bodies rather than replacing them. Their role is to bring together the surgeons working in one field so that practice can be compared, research presented and trainees given a place to speak.
What an annual scientific meeting is for
An annual scientific meeting is the main occasion on which a society's members present work to each other. A typical programme includes free papers from registrars and fellows, invited talks, and case discussions where a difficult problem is put to the room. The format matters, because it allows a result to be questioned in person rather than only read.
Presenting is also how trainees learn to defend their own work. A registrar who has had their methods questioned by a room of consultants reads other people's papers differently afterwards.
Where hand and shoulder surgery meet
The upper limb works as a single unit, so the two fields overlap more than their names suggest. Nerve problems arising in the neck and around the shoulder can present as weakness or numbness in the hand. A stiff or painful shoulder changes how the whole arm is used, and a patient who cannot position the arm cannot use the hand properly even when the hand itself is normal. Surgeons in both fields therefore see related problems, and meetings of this kind are one of the places where that overlap is worked through. Individual results vary.
Related information
See our shoulder injuries page for an overview of the conditions covered in this practice, our shoulder anatomy page for how the joint is put together, and our brachial plexus exploration page.