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14th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand (IFSSH), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT)

17.06. - 21.06.2019, Berlin

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“Less than ten” – Amputation injuries among surgeons

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  • presenting/speaker Lars H. Evers - University of California, San Diego, United States
  • Richard Bodor - University of California, San Diego, United States

International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand. International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy. 14th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand (IFSSH), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT). Berlin, 17.-21.06.2019. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2020. DocIFSSH19-1250

doi: 10.3205/19ifssh0972, urn:nbn:de:0183-19ifssh09725

Published: February 6, 2020

© 2020 Evers et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Outline

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Objectives/Interrogation: Amputation injuries and their microsurgical treatment are part of a daily routine of a Hand-Trauma-Center. In the majority of these cases, the patients are technical skilled workers appointed in agriculture and industry. Little is known about amputation injuries of surgical colleagues. To best of our knowledge, data about type, numbers, results, long term follow-up, rehabilitation and the psychological impact after amputation injuries among surgeons are very rare.

Methods: Here we present an interesting case of a vascular surgeon, who sustained a three finger amputation in a circle saw accident in private settings. The immediate operative care as well as the follow-up and the rehabilitation is presented. Special attention is paid to the high motivation of this colleague. Furthermore a comprehensive literature review was undertaken.

Results and Conclusions: In the case of the vascular surgeon colleague, due to the devastating injury pattern with multiple trauma locations in all affected digits, only the ringfinger could be successfully replanted. However due to his extraordinary high motivation, he was able to return full-time to his surgical profession even with only 3 fingers in his one hand.

Amputation injuries are an extremely devastating accident for the life of the patients. However our example of an highly motivated surgeon colleague, who is still working as an active surgeon emphasize the impact of the psychological strength and self motivation.