Article and photos contributed by Dr Tan Soo Heong on 25 October 2008, published here with minor editing:

A/Prof Lim Beng Hai and Dr Tan Soo Heong attended the 37th Annual Kleinert Reunion Dinner on Friday, September 19, 2008. This was held during the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand in windy Chicago from 18 to 20 September 2008. This Reunion was special because it marked the retirement of Dr Harold Kleinert from active practice. Dr Harold Kleinert and the Christine M Kleinert Institute have been instrumental in training several Hand Surgeons in Singapore. In recognition of his important contributions, he was made an Honorary Member of the SSHS in 2003.

SGH ADVANCED HAND SURGERY TRAINING PROGRAMME

Wednesday, 7.30am - 8.30am

Education Resource Centre ,  Dept Of Occupational Therapy, SGH

SINGAPORE GENERAL HOSPITAL ADVANCED HAND SURGERY TRAINING PROGRAMME (WEDNESDAYS)

Venue : Education Resource Centre ,  Dept Of Occupational Therapy, SGH

01 / 10 / 2008	HARI RAYA PUASA
08 / 10 / 2008	Vascular Grafts and vessel substitutes	Darryl Chew	A/Prof Teoh LC
15 / 10 / 2008	Tendon grafts and tendon substitutes	Sandeep	Dr Tay SC
22 / 10 / 2008	Extraarticular Fractures of the Distal Radius	Ambrose Yung	A/Prof Agnes Tan
29 / 10 / 2008	Intraarticular Fractures of the Distal Radius	Yeo CJ	Dr Tay SC

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL ADVANCED HAND SURGERY TRAINING PROGRAMME (THURSDAYS)

Venue : Cardiac Department Lecture Theatre, Level 3, NUH

To: All SSHS Members

This is to inform you that the 27th Annual General Meeting of the Singapore Society for Hand Surgery will be held on 12 April 2008 at 10am at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront, Singapore.

The SSHS 17th Hand Review Course and ASM was held from 1-2 February 2008 at the recently opened Advanced Surgical Training Centre in NUH. The venue was excellent, with great audio-visual facilities, very good seating arrangement in a small theatrette, and extra seating plus space for posters in a separate room. The foyer was sufficiently spacious for several sponsors to set up tables.

Thank you Professor Tu Yuan-Kun!

The scientific program this year was anchored by two excellent lectures by our invited speaker, Professor Tu Yuan-Kun of E-Da Hospital and I-Shou University, Taiwan. Professor Tu, a renowned microsurgeon and innovator in hand and microsurgery, delivered a deeply philosophical lecture on microsurgery to start the conference off. He then shared his personal experience with the contralateral C7 transfer for brachial plexus surgery. To end the course, Professor Tu skilfully demonstrated a toe transfer for congenital transverse deficiency, live via video from the NUH operating theatres.

Those who were fortunate enough to hear Professor Tu speak during his two-week lecture series as Hand Surgery HMDP expert will agree that he is certainly an inspiring role model for microsurgeons. Candid and honest about his surgery and ever willing to discuss his failures alongside his successes, all his lectures were both entertaining and educational. His work ethic is almost unbelievable - 2 clinics a week going from 8.30 am to 11.30 pm seeing 300 patients personally, 2 theater sessions doing spine and joint replacements, 2 BPI cases and 2 free flaps a week, and an all-day microsurgery theatre session every Saturday going into Sunday morning! This apart from his administrative duties as vice-superintendent of the hospital, and helping out with emergency cases after his clinic if necesssary! Despite all this, he remains one of the most humble, down to earth and pleasant people I have ever met, with absolutely no airs at all.  All surgeons and surgical trainees would do well to follow his example.

Thank you Dr Martins Kapickis!

Dr Martins Kapickis is President of the Latvian Hand Society, a former fellow of the National University Hospital's Dept of Hand an Reconstructive Microsurgery and former fellow of the Christine Kleinert Institute, Louisville. Although officially in Singapore on holiday, he very gamely delivered some quality lectures and sat on the panel of judges for the free paper and poster presentations. We are most grateful for his help and look forward to strengthening ties and ongoing collaboration with the Latvian Hand Society. 

Congratulations to this year's ASM award winners - Dr Sandeep Sebastin (Best Free Paper) and Dr Gale Lim (Best Poster)

Once again, the standard in scientific papers was raised by the excellent quality of the papers and posters presented. Six free papers and nine posters were judged by our panel consisting of the eminent Professor Robert Pho, Dr Yong Fok Chuan, and international judges Dr Erwin from Indonesia and Dr Martins Kapickis, President of the Latvian Hand Society. This year, a "best poster" category was introduced for the first time, in addition to the traditional "best paper". The winning entries were:

The Quaba flap - extending the indications, SJ Sebastin, AYT Lim, YP Peng, D Tan, R Mendoza, Department of Hand and Reconstructive Microsurgery, National University Hospital - free paper presented by Dr Sandeep Sebastin (left)

Thumb MP joint volar plate reconstruction with tendon sling, GJS Lim, AKT Yam, SC Tay, FC Yong, LC Teoh, Department of Hand Surgery, Singapore General Hospital - poster presented by Dr Gale Lim (right)

We look forward to seeing these innovative techniques joining the international hand surgery literature in the near future.

Incidentally, Dr Lim is the only junior resident (MO) to have won prizes for papers presented at the SSHS ASM two years in a row - she won second prize last year for her paper "The spiral flap for resurfacing large fingertip pulp defects", which will be published soon in the Journal of Hand Surgery (American Edition).

Professor Tu Yuan-Kun, Director of Orthopaedics, E-Da Hospital and Professor, I-Shou University of Taiwan, is in Singapore for 2 weeks as visiting HMDP expert and invited international speaker at the SSHS. Professor Tu is an expert microsurgeon and creative genius in the field of hand surgery, with many innovative contributions to the field of vascularised bone grafting, microsurgical management of congenital defects, and brachial plexus reconstruction. Please see the "Events" column on the left for details of his lectures.

Dear members,

Sorry for the rather long delay in updates of the SSHS website. The webmaster is out of hibernation finally. Thank you for your patience. Please refer to the updates below for the upcoming events that will happen over the next 6 months.

As this is a website for all members of SSHS as well as keen, bona-fide and enthusiastic hand surgeons around the world, I will like to invite all of you to contribute your cases so that we can all learn from each other. Nothing better than to get all your esteemed opinions and comments to better inform ourselves and to improve patient care ultimately. Please feel free to send your pictures and summaries of the cases to andrewthechin@hotmail.com

I would also like to thank my hardworking and long suffering colleague Andrew Yam for helping out with the website maintenence in my absence. You will see postings being put up by the both of us every now and then.

Looking forward to serving you better,

Andrew Chin

Our Society is organizing the 17th Comprehensive Hand Review Course and Annual Scientific Meeting on 1 – 2 February 2008.  The theme for this year's review course is "Reconstructive Microsurgery". The course is aimed at surgical trainees especially those interested in Hand Surgery, Orthopaedics, Plastic Surgery and Emergency Medicine.  The course is also relevant to hand therapists.

This course will be especially exciting as we have invited world renowned microsurgeon Professor Tu Yuan-Kun to be part of the teaching faculty.  He will share his expertise in a series of lectures as well as a live interactive surgery session.

We have put together an exciting and educational programme covering all aspects of hand, wrist and microsurgery, and we invite you to share in the vast knowlege and experience of professor Tu and Singapore's leading proponents in these disciplines. We also invite you to share YOUR knowledge and experience through discussion and the Free Paper/Poster presentations.

 The Course will be held at:

Auditorium, Advanced Surgery Training Centre (ASTC), level 2, Kent Ridge Wing 2

National University Hospital, Singapore 119074

A/Prof Aymeric Lim

President/Organising Chairman, Singapore

Download the registration form here.