Hand & Upper Extremity Service

The Hand and Upper Extremity Service continues to expand in clinical volume, teaching programs, and clinical and basic research. The flexibility of our entire faculty has allowed the Hand and Upper Extremity Service to maintain its high standards of clinical and academic output and excellence.

Dr. Chaitanya Mudgal was the Interim Chief of the Service since March 2010, and a national search for a new Chief was underway through HMS. After an extensive process, Dr. David Ring has been appointed as the new Chief of the MGH Hand and Upper Extremity Service, bringing extensive clinical and research experience and expertise to this prestigious position.

In addition to being extremely active and clinically busy at the main MGH campus, Drs. Jesse Jupiter, Chaitanya Mudgal, David Ring, and Sang-Gil Lee have been equally as busy utilizing the excellent outpatient surgery facilities at Mass General West; Drs. Jupiter and Mudgal continue to regularly see patients there. These outreach efforts provide comprehensive patient care to individuals located far from the Metro Boston area. We also continue to benefit from the weekly clinical sessions of Dr. James Herndon, who serves as an invaluable resource for all our trainees and faculty. He sees patients at the main campus.

The Hand Surgery Fellowship is now in its sixth year as a combined fellowship with the Plastic Surgery Service. Dr. Mudgal continues in his fourth year as the Program Director. With their expertise in free tissue transfers, as well as management of brachial plexus injuries, Drs. Jonathan Winograd and Curtis L. Cetrulo, Jr. from Plastic Surgery have greatly added to the fellows’ education. The Service continues to enhance educational and academic content regularly, with updates to the “Hand CD.” The fellows now have regular access to microsurgical laboratory facilities under the supervision of Mark Randolph from the Plastic Surgery Service. We are pleased with the continued collaboration of the Hand Service and Plastic Surgery, which further enhances the fellows’ experience and education during their time at the MGH.

The Service continues to host Dutch, German, and Swiss PhD candidates doing research under the guidance of Dr. Ring. In the past year, Kim Brower and Geert Buize defended their respective PhDs in Amsterdam. Geert was awarded Cum Laude! We enjoy hosting surgeon observers and researchers from all over the world–many of them AO Fellows visiting Dr. Jupiter–giving the unit a cosmopolitan feel.

In an effort to increase our international collaboration, an association has also been established with Dr. Raja Sabapathy at the Ganga Hospital in Coimbatore, India. Dr. Sabapathy is an international authority on the management of complex mutilating hand trauma. It is anticipated that Dr. Mathew Thomas, who graduated in 2012, will be our next fellow to visit the Ganga Hospital later this year or in early 2013. Our previous fellows who have visited Dr. Sabapathy include Dr. Alan Chambers and Dr. Andrea Bauer. They had a terrific few weeks in Coimbatore and spoke in glowing terms of their clinical and surgical experiences.

Academic productivity continues to remain high. The Hand and Upper Extremity Service had nearly two dozen peer-reviewed publications, has produced over twenty clinical communications and review papers, and nearly a dozen book chapters. The faculty continues to be featured regularly in local, regional, national, and international symposia with roles varying from speakers to moderators to course chairmen.