By Jeffrey Yao, MD

When invited by Kevin Lutsky to contribute to ASSH Perspectives, I was of course honored to participate but then I thought to myself, “What HAS been the biggest surprise of my career?” A challenging question as things seemingly have progressed and evolved in a somewhat straightforward career path, but upon further reflection there have been surprises I have seen over the last 15 years.

I chose to address the question from two perspectives.

First, I remain surprised that I have been able to get to do what I love for a living. I am surprised that through the ups and downs of education and training I have been blessed with the opportunity to be an academic hand surgeon. I am able to perform three of the “jobs” I have always valued most throughout my life: caring for and treating patients, educating others, and improving how we do the other two things better through scientific exploration. Being proficient in these three facets of my career has really opened an amazing set of doors and I would not have imagined I would have been able to travel extensively domestically and also internationally to 21 different countries to exchange thoughts and ideas with others who are equally passionate about hand surgery. I awake each day still somewhat in awe that through hard work and some lucky breaks I am allowed to live this fulfilling life calling. It’s truly a blessing.

Second, I have found it pleasantly surprising how small and intimate our Hand Surgery community is. It was frequently surprising to me to learn that the giants of hand surgery are normal people, just like you and I. These legends face the same triumphs and challenges that we all encounter. The names are way too numerous to include here but I remember reading about and idolizing such giants as Lee Osterman, Dick Berger, Marc Garcia-Elias, Mark Baratz, Peter Weiss and Peter Stern, among so many others too countless to name. And to then meet them and get to know them throughout my career and see that they are normal, down-to-earth people who just love hand surgery like you and me has also been the most pleasant surprise throughout my career.

Thanks for reading; I look forward to more surprises our wonderful discipline of Hand Surgery has in store for the future!