January 2018 – ASSH Perspectives

Category: January 2018

For this month’s edition, we asked you to “Write about your practice environment, the pros and cons of being solo, group, academic, private. Tell us what works or doesn’t work in your office.” Our members highlight the benefits and downfalls of several environments, from having autonomy in the practice to trekking it all alone.

Introduction: Patient Safety Scenarios

By David Nelson, MD Chair, Patient Safety Subcommittee This essay is the first in a series of monthly Patient Safety essays by the Patient Safety Subcommittee of the Ethics and Professionalism Committee. A comparison of safety in aviation and medicine is frightening: aviation disasters are investigated, written up, and every pilot has access to the […]

Patient Safety Scenario #1: Patient With No Allergies Is Allergic To Nickel

Scenario Note: This happened to the Chair of the Patient Safety Subcommittee, and therefore this write-up will be in the first person. The patient is a 21 year old boy who is quite well known to me, the surgeon. I was present at his baptism, my wife is the patient’s godmother, and his grandmother is […]

Practice Environment, Pros And Cons

By Lawrence T. Donovan, DO I can recall vividly a conversation that I had with my dad in 1978 after my first year of medical school when he was passing on some very sage advice. My dad was a pathologist who practiced at three small, rural hospitals in Iowa and Minnesota, traveling 45,000 miles per year […]

Hand Surgery Practice In Retirement

By Robert L. Horner, MD Doors have been opened because I choose to be a Hand Surgeon. There had been a limit for membership to 100 in the American Society for Surgery of the Hand –but, just in time for me, that arbitrary number was upped to 125, and I was elected to membership in […]

Have We Lost Our Nerve?

By Richard D. Meyer, MD Of all the “procedures” done by hand surgeons, release of entrapped nerves are among the most common. There were countless chapters, articles, and research produced decades before there was reliable evidence or tests to substantiate these diagnoses. Even after nerve conduction testing became more routine, it was years before carpal […]

Solo Practice: Challenging But Rewarding

By Pedro Negrao Ramos, MD My name is Pedro Ramos and I’m from Porto, Portugal. In Portugal, you don’t have an organized hand fellowship, so I did my hand training during orthopedic residency with two very experienced hand surgeons in a level one trauma center in Porto. They were “responsible” for my passion with hand […]