Free flaps are also covered during the fellowship. The Orthopaedic Service does its own flaps. In addition, we have an active biomechanics research laboratory headed by Keikhosrow Firoozbakhsh , who has a PhD in Biomechanical Engineering. The fellow is usually assigned to and works closely with one of the attending physicians. The fellow covers both private and public hand clinics and is assisted by orthopaedic residents.
Fellows participate in two conferences per week devoted solely to the hand fellowship program.
In addition, fellows will take part in the hand curriculum of the orthopaedic residency program. The fellows' responsibilities gradually increase during the year and they are the primary surgeons on an increasing number of procedures. The residency program has twenty residents and the fellow is asked to work closely with the residents at all levels. We encourage research and at least one paper a year. There are several on-going research projects in both clinical hand surgery and biomechanics.