Hand Surgery Fellowship Program

In addition to providing a large volume and wide variety of hand surgical pathology and procedures, our program is defined by unique characteristics that distinguish our program from others throughout the country:

Our fellowship program has an outstanding clinical and research faculty to deliver superior education. The fellowship provides comprehensive exposure to a wide array of physicians, pathology, and procedures:

Fellows also get extensive exposure to carpal reconstructive procedures for a myriad of challenging problems (e.g., carpal instability, scaphoid nonunions, Kienböck’s disease), including vascularized cartilage transfer.

The teaching staff provides instruction and supervision to the fellows in a variety of forums, including the National Hand Specialists Office, Greater Chesapeake Hand Specialists Office, operating room, rehabilitation unit, conferences, journal club, anatomy lab, Surgical Techniques and Technologies Cadaver Laboratory (STAT Lab), and the microsurgical laboratory.

Approximately 4,500 surgical procedures are performed annually, providing opportunities to participate in every aspect of hand and upper extremity reconstruction.

The teaching program includes conferences, lectures, and/or surgical labs covering all aspects of hand surgery and anatomy.

Clinical rotations

The Hand Service is arranged into five teams, and each fellow spends time on each team. The fellow is assigned to a team with a resident and several attending physicians. Eleven months of the year are spent rotating through our five busy teams.

Clinical categories are well balanced in upper extremity trauma, microsurgery, posttraumatic reconstruction, arthritic conditions, neurological disorders, congenital conditions, and other disorders.

The single “away” rotation is a one-month block spent focusing on complex congenital and pediatric hand surgery with the faculty of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). During the CHOP rotation, fellows get training in elective and emergent congenital and pediatric hand surgery problems, including management of brachial plexus birth palsy.

Clinical responsibilities

Each patient clinic is staffed by a hand fellow, physician assistant, and hand therapist. The Fellows Clinic provides a setting for new patient and postoperative visits for house staff patients as appropriate.

Research

We have state-of-the-art basic science and biomechanics facilities and a health services and outcomes research team. Alongside our faculty projects, our fellows each complete at least one research project (with a faculty member as a sponsor/mentor) that will be suitable for presentation and/or publication.

Call

Each fellow takes call. The call schedule will not impact vacation, meeting, or sick time.

At the weekly hand conference, the fellows present cases to the residents, attending staff, visiting specialists, therapists, and interested hand and orthopedic surgeons in the community.