Program Curriculum

The Acute Trauma and Complex Reconstructions of the Upper Extremity

All fellows participate in call [call is from home only] during the whole year at Henry Ford St. John, which is a level one trauma center, and Henry Ford Providence Southfield Hospital. When fellows are on specific rotations, they will be available at institutions that the faculty is on-call other than the above sites. The fellows are involved in ER consultations, assessments of patients, developing the appropriate differential diagnosis, communicating with the referring and attending physicians, and treating minor conditions in the ER, developing a plan for the major reconstruction and repair in the operating room. The elective at Children Hospital of Michigan along with Dr. Mehta’s rotation will provide experience in pediatric hand surgery emergencies.

The fellows have a month-long rotation at Royal Oak Beaumont with the micro-surgery team. They will do a one week-long basic micro-surgery course in the rat lab followed by three-week clinical rotation developing experience in complex soft tissue re-construction and micro-surgery construction. They will have access to the micro-surgery rat lab at Royal Oak Beaumont and Henry Ford Providence Southfield Hospital throughout the year to improve their micro-surgical skills.

The Ambulatory Hand Surgery Experience

The fellowship faculty is divided into five groups and the Hand fellow will rotate for two months in each of these groups. Most of the experience at Michigan Surgery Specialist Hand Center (MSS) is in the Ambulatory setting and at least 5,000 cases are done in this setting. During each two- month rotation the fellows will be required to do two full days a week in the clinics at MSS with the appropriate attending faculty as part of their rotation. They will also operate with the same faculty at least two days a week, which will be primarily at the Ambulatory Surgery facilities at Surgeon’s Choice Medical Center. They will also follow the Attending Physician to other ambulatory facilities associated with the participating sites.

They will also be on call from home with their respective faculty during each rotation as noted above.

The elective at Children Hospital of Michigan along with Dr. Mehta’s rotation will provide experience in pediatric Hand Surgery non emergent hand surgery cases and congenital deformities.

Didactic Conferences

Weekly Sessions: There will be weekly core curriculum sessions. The fellow will be required to prepare and present/give at least one of these conferences a month.

Monthly Sessions: There will be monthly sessions that include:

• Monthly Journal Club
• Monthly Mortality and morbidity case reviews
• Research/Quality Improvement Conference

Research/Quality Improvement

An active research/quality improvement component is included within the fellowship training program. A meaningful research/quality improvement experience is provided with appropriate protected time for each fellow. A faculty member selected will serve as a specific research/quality improvement mentor for each fellow.

The immediate goal of the research/quality improvement experience is for the fellow to learn sound methodology in designing and performing research/quality improvement studies and the correct interpretation and synthesis of research/quality data. During this phase of training the fellow will work under close guidance of the research mentor.

Continuing Medical Education and Society Memberships

In addition to participating in the organized didactic conferences established within the fellowship program it is also strongly encouraged that all fellows become candidate members of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand and the American Association for Hand Surgeons as well as any local society. Participation in the continuing medical education activities of these professional organizations will help foster the standards of professionalism and augment the process of lifelong learning.

Experience in Developing Teaching Skills

The program provides an environment for the fellow which fosters and highly regards the activities of teaching. This includes the education of not only medical students, physicians, and other allied health personnel but also the education of the patients. Development of these skills requires the fellow to receive instruction and feedback in counseling and communication techniques. This latter training includes cultural, social, behavioral and economic issues such as confidentiality of information and indications for life support systems.