Hand Surgery at Knox Plastic Surgery
Initial Consultation
If you are experiencing issues with your wrist or hand, you can begin your journey by having an assessment and radiological examination (an X-ray) at Knox Plastic Surgery. We then discuss with you what your treatment options are and whether they involve surgical intervention or conservative treatment. Your doctor will then help you decide what approach is best for your case.
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Your Procedure
Depending on the outcome of your consultation, you may be booked in for surgery – this is specifically when non-surgical options are unavailable. Patients will be asked to fast any food before their operation. Because of the availability of long acting local anaesthetic agents such as naropin (which can last up to 24 hours) many hand surgery procedures can be performed as a day case, meaning you can go home and sleep in your own bed after your surgery.
Recovery and Follow up
After your procedure, follow up hand therapy is arranged by local therapists situated in Vermont, Boronia, or Gippsland depending on where our patients live. Hand surgery should always be supplemented with hand therapy, and the role of an experienced hand therapist in the patients hand surgery journey cannot be overstated. At Knox plastic surgery, we take this extremely seriously.
Throughout the process, our friendly staff will be with you in order to make your journey as seamless as possible, as we understand that hand surgery, like any medical procedure, can be quite daunting for some.
Surgical Terms and Conditions
In your initial consult, we will determine what your condition is, and what the likely treatment options will look like. Here is a list of possible surgical interventions that we do in the case that a conservative approach is not optimal:
- bone fractures,
- open reduction and internal fixation of bones,
- arthroplasty (joint surgeries),
- joint fusions,
- motion sparing joint fusions,
- tendon transfers,
- tenolysis,
- nerve releases,
- carpal tunnel release,
- ulnar nerve release,
- ulnar nerve transposition,
- trigger finger release,
- release of hand contractures (dupuytren’s contracture)
Expertise
Training to become a specialist hand surgeon in Melbourne usually involves around seventeen years of dedication and study. Currently to become a fellow of the hand surgery society a trainee has to complete advanced surgery training in either plastic or orthopaedic surgery, and then do further training under the tutelage of the alternate specialist craft group, be they either orthopaedic or plastic surgeons. Thus a properly trained hand surgeon is comfortable dealing with pathology of the bone, joint, tendon, nerve, artery and skin of the hand and upper limb. Some practitioners specialise in shoulder or elbow, and others wrist and hand, and some have a general interest in the upper limb.
Mr Crock is an educator and specialist in the discipline of hand surgery, a member of the Australian Hand Surgery Society, the American society for surgery of the hand, the Asia Pacific hand surgery society and in addition runs the Non Profit Organisation “Aussie Health Abroad” (AHA trains surgeons in developing nations, and the organisation has a special interest in training hand surgery to surgeons in countries where hand injuries are very common, typically poorly treated, and have devastating consequences for the individuals as well as the community at large).