Life as a Hand Surgery Fellow

Curriculum: Our fellows receive clinical training under the supervision of the attending staff of twelve full-time hand surgeons. Patient exposure is both in the office (40,000 visits per year) and in the operating room (5,500 procedures per year). The program emphasizes decision-making skills in which there is a progressive responsibility in patient management and treatment commensurate with the Fellow’s ability.

Fellows are challenged to contribute to the advancement of Hand Surgery through anatomic and clinical research, and to present their findings at scientific meetings. Upon completion of the program, we expect that participants will have completed a manuscript that can be submitted for publication in a peer review journal.

Our goal is to provide a comprehensive education in hand and upper extremity surgery. We anticipate that our Fellows will devote most of their practices to this specialty and become active members of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand.

Didactic Training: The following schedule is followed throughout the year except holidays.

Problem Conference: Each fellow prepares a case for presentation and discussion every Monday throughout the year. All cases are collected in the fellowship folder from previous years. Dr Stern leads the discussion among the faculty highlighting differences of opinions and approaches to some of the common as well as the uncommon cases in hand surgery.

Spit Balls, Curves, Sliders: A life-long Reds Fan Dr Stern, uses these three words, aka SCS conference, to illustrate some of the most interesting and unusual cases throughout his career.

Selected Readings and Journal Club: Selected readings consists of carefully chosen, extensively discussed, classic articles in 50 topics of hand surgery. Collection was created by Dr Stern, revised and enriched by faculty over the years. These topics are coordinated and complemented with didactic lectures the next day. Once a month, we discuss latest publications in hand surgery in the Journal Club.

Didactic Lectures: 50 topics in hand surgery are covered by the faculty every Friday, after reviewing its selected readings the day before.

Anatomy Sessions: Once a month (usually on second or third Wednesday of the month), we cover basic anatomy of the hand and upper extremity, as well as specific surgical techniques including wrist arthroscopy, soft tissue reconstruction, principles of AO, TMR (upper and lower extremity).

Rotation Schedule and Call Responsibilities: Fellows will be on call approximately once every third night and every fourth weekend. Fellows take call at the University Hospital with primary Hand Call every odd day and at two local private hospitals with an attending physician present.

Clinical rotation follows the schedule below.

Microsurgery Training: One of the critical aspects of training is offered on site, and starts with a weeklong course on basics of microsurgery training followed by advanced microsurgical techniques throughout the year.

Meetings: One of the oldest traditions of our fellowship is the Tristate Hand Surgery Meeting in which faculty and fellows from three of the nations’ oldest hand surgery programs from Louisville, Indianapolis and Cincinnati get together to present state of the art scientific studies conducted in their institution. Fellows are expected to present at least one study in that meeting.

ASSH Annual Meeting: Fellows are highly encouraged to submit an abstract and/or attend the annual meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. Fellowship funds can be used to attend this meeting.

Visiting Professor: Another one of the traditions in our program is the Mary S. Stern Visiting Hand Surgery Fellowship, in which a renowned leader in hand surgery is invited to Cincinnati to spend a day with fellows giving lectures and sharing wisdom in person. We had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Jennifer Wolf in 2023, and will be hosting Dr James Chang in 2024.

International Mission Trips: Fellows are provided funds to participate mission trips, set by the ASSH and other organizations. Some examples of previous years are shown below.