key: cord-0737453-huzc6nqe
authors: Gupta, Vikas; Vaishya, Raju
title: A big disparity between the demand and supply of Hand Surgeons in India
date: 2020-05-28
journal: J Clin Orthop Trauma
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcot.2020.05.028
sha: 0d43a947f2e5c1424da616d648c12cee34d978c8
doc_id: 737453
cord_uid: huzc6nqe

nan

(Vikas Gupta 1 India but we can assume these to be lesser than 1/10 th compared to the USA. The Indian Society of Surgery for Hand has only 700 registered members, for a population of 140 billion people. There is a huge burden or traumatic injuries of the hand, in India.

These accidental injuries not only lead to dysfunction and permanent hand deformities but also cause severe financial losses due to absence from the work (1). Occupational hand injuries are the most commonly encountered injuries in young males. Hence, not only the management of these complex injuries should be undertaken promptly by a hand specialist, but also an emphasis needs to put in place about the prevention of these injuries at the workplace, by education and improving the environment around the workers(2). Hence, there is a huge demand and need for the orthopaedic surgeons, specializing in the hand and wrist surgery in India, since we face a massive challenge in dealing with these traumatic injuries, congenital and acquired deformities and until recently these were either neglected willfully or were not treated adequately by the We are publishing this special issue amidst the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19. This crisis has posed several challenges to us, as some of our authors could not submit their work at all or with great difficulties. We have also included some articles related to COVID-19 in this issue like on the strategies in reconfiguration of hand injuries (12) and revisiting the fracture management (13) during the pandemic. This pandemic has also compelled the healthcare providers to embrace several emerging technologies like telemedicine, and artificial intelligence (14) . Similarly the latest application of Internet of Medical Things to combat such major health crisis, has been discussed by Singh et al. (15) .

We believe and are optimistic that this special issue on hand would be useful not only for the practicing orthopaedic surgeons, but would also encourage the younger generation of orthopaedic surgeons to take to take up hand surgery as a subspecialty, so as to fill in the existing huge gap. During this pandemic, we have witnessed a series of webinars on various orthopaedic topics, including the hand and wrist. These were enriching in experience and knowledge. However, there is an important caveat in these webinars as sometimes there are only anecdotal and the personal opinion of the presenters. For many surgeons, it may be difficult to differentiate evidence from perception. We hope this special issue provides our readers the scientifically rich clinical wisdom.

The Distribution of Specialist Hand Surgeons Across the United States

Demographic profile of hand injuries in an industrial town of North India: A review of 436 patients

Epidemiology of hand injuries in adults presenting to a tertiary trauma care centre: A descriptive study

Guidelines for management of crush injuries of the hand

Neglected Transscphoid perilunate dislocation: treatment protocol

Outcome of tendon transfer for radial nerve palsy using Flexor Carpi Radialis combination (Brands transfer)

Functional evaluation of early tendon transfer for thumb opposition in median nerve palsy

Ordinary PVC feeding tube: A low-cost alternative to silicon rod for staged flexor tendon reconstruction in zone II of hand

Repair of Flexor Tendon Injuries by Four Strands Cruciate Technique Versus Two strands Kessler Technique

Revisiting conservative orthopaedic management of fractures during COVID-19 pandemic

Emerging technologies to combat COVID-19 pandemic

Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) for Orthopaedic in COVID-19 pandemic: Roles, Challenges, and Applications