WALANT is an acronym for Wide Awake Local Anesthesia No Tourniquet Surgery. This is medical terminology for the surgical approach to be used. As opposed to a specific surgical technique that addresses the bone, joint or other problem requiring surgery itself, an approach is something that can be used for many different types of surgeries. It consists of the facility or care setting, the type of anesthesia and some finer details of how your surgeon performs the procedure, most notably the start and end.
Using this approach, the patient is not put to sleep, but instead lidocaine and epinephrine are used so the patient cannot feel the hand or wrist during the brief time the surgeon actually needs to complete the procedure (less than 30 minutes). Hence, this technique is unique to hand and wrist surgery.