The Value of Diversity: Spectrum of Tissue, Training, and Individuals in Hand Surgery

“It falls to few men to originate a surgical specialty."— Sterling BunnellThe field of Hand Surgery was founded by Dr Sterling Bunnell, who was asked by the US Surgeon General, during World War II, to develop regional hand centers at Army Hospitals in the United States. The history of the foundi ng of Hand Surgery is important knowledge. The “few men” were the founders of the field and included only White men (Fig. 1). Dr Bunnell believed that Hand Surgery was a “composite problem requiring the correlation of the various specialties—Orthopaedic, Plastic and Neurologic Surgery—the knowledge of any one of which alone is inadequate for repairing the hand.” This concept of bringing together several surgical specialties becomes essential to take care of all the tissues of the hand and upper extremity to repair and reconstruct all the necessary structures in a coordinated fashi on.
Source: Hand Clinics - Category: Orthopaedics Authors: Tags: Preface Source Type: research