Please wait...

Technology In Hand Surgery: A Blessing Or A Curse?

By Maurizio Calcagni, MD

I had the chance to train and work in a very exciting time for hand surgery. In the last 25 years we adjusted to many new technological developments that have deeply changed our practice: locking plates, wrist arthroscopy, cannulated headless screws, super microsurgery, hand transplantation, perforator flaps, ultrasound diagnostics, peripheral nerve transfers for plexus lesions, bionic prosthesis, 3D-printed guides and a lot more. Almost every domain of hand surgery from soft to hard tissue have improved and it is difficult to tell which single technology is more important, but there are some general considerations.

Continuous learning and strive for better results are intrinsic to surgery and every time I see a report about a new finding, device or technique, I feel the thrill of the new challenge and the curiosity to have, use it, the hope that it will be better than what we used or had before. We can offer more, hopefully better, to our patients. This is the blessing.

The other side of the medal, the curse if you want, is the difficulty to evaluate and choose between what is just new and what is really better. The pressure is big from outside to adopt new devices or implants, from the administration to reduce costs, from the patients to have safer procedures and it is difficult to keep the balance and decide wisely. Moreover, we are all familiar with the hype curve of technology of Gartner and we don’t want to adopt at the wrong time.

 

Also our personality, experience and age determine our attitude. The first time I realized that I was starting to think as a senior was when I was the one in the team asking for more data, evidences about the newest technique.

In conclusion for me technology and modernity are a blessing, but sometimes there are also thorns.

Leave comments

Your email is safe with us.