Hand Surgeons—More Need of the Hour

“My child has a door crush injury hand”; “I have a basketball injury to my finger”; “my mother has a mixer blade injury.” What to do? Where to find hand surgeons? Are they located in town? All these have become clamant questions. Patients with severe hand injury who need emergency treatment at odd hours often fail to find a good hand surgeon. There is a huge void of good hand surgeons in the society even though hand surgery is the most sought after specialty.

The populist belief among the new surgeons is that the spine surgery, arthroplasty, and arthroscopy are incontrovertible and that hand surgery is arduous and laborious. Whereas the truth is something different. This is a very challenging stream and has a huge potential.

There has been a remarkable revolution in technology. Hand and microsurgery has evolved with the increasing technical advancements and the fine techniques embraced by many experts, stalwarts, Nobel Laurates, and scientific thinkers over the period of time. Hand surgeons are equanimous, sober, and erudite. They are the enlightened personalities who work with patience, courage, and conviction. They have to spend a very long time in the operating theater with full concentration on the patient's amelioration. In an organization or hospital, they may be considered cog of the wheel, but they hog the limelight when it comes to being technical savvy, having explicit experiences, and the modus operandi.

It is now time when we should encourage young and energetic minds to learn this specialty and become benevolent surgeons. The senior surgeons, teachers, pedagogues, and mentors should take special interest and care in motivating their fellow colleagues. There is a famous verse by an Indian industrialist, investor, philanthropist, and former chairman of Tata Sons—Ratan Tata[1]—“If you want to walk fast, walk alone. But if you want to walk far, walk together.” A unit of such scholars formed together as team in every organization can accomplish success in the hand and microsurgery specialty.

Message of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the 11th president of India, career scientist-turned-statesman, missile man,[2] especially to young people, is to have courage to think differently, invent, travel the unexplored path, discover the impossible, and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work toward. This is his special message to the young people. Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, and entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model. Hand surgery is one such area where everything fits into.

The author's daylong dream in this context would be a reality where hand and microsurgery specialty shall truly be implemented as per the Latin phrase “vidi vici veni,” which means “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

• References

• 1 Ratan Tata. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratan_Tata . Accessed August 23, 2017
• 2 A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._P._J._Abdul_Kalam . Accessed August 23, 2017