Clinical activity
The Hand and Upper Extremity section within the UT Southwestern Department of Orthopaedic Surgery has four full-time, board-certified faculty members. Leading the team as Section Chief is Daniel Koehler, M.D., who manages all presentations of surgical care at UT Southwestern’s main campus in Dallas. Other members of this section include Rob Bass, M.D., and Tim Schacherer, M.D., who currently have elective hand and upper extremity surgical practices at UT Southwestern Frisco in partnership with Texas Health Frisco, where Dr. Bass also serves as Chief Medical Officer. Ann Golden, M.D., has been a pillar of excellence in hand and upper extremity surgical care for the Parkland Health & Hospital System for the past several years. She treats patterns of complex injuries, including Level 1 trauma. Along with Dr. Golden, Dr. Schacherer has a presence at Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he is instrumental in carrying forward the complex derivatives of upper extremity arthroplasty. The section is looking forward to welcoming a new hand surgeon, Richard Samade, M.D., next year. He completed his residency at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and his fellowship at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Samade also holds a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from UCLA.
Scholarly activity
The Hand and Upper Extremity section has had continued success in scholarly endeavors over the course of the past year, including a vast number of novel research investigations conducted by the section’s faculty leading orthopaedic surgery residents. The efforts have had a wide variety of focus, such as a literature review on elbow arthrodesis, case reporting of brachial artery thrombosis in COVID-19 patients, and more. Findings from these investigations have been shared by the residents and section faculty in multiple publications and presentations nationwide. Also, the section works in tandem with hand surgery colleagues in the Department of Plastic Surgery on multiple investigations, especially when it is multiple-cadaveric-based research. Most recently, the departments worked on and published a study that had the objective of comparing distal radius fractures with radiographic outcomes.
Education
In addition to providing expert, world-class patient care, the most rewarding and important responsibility the Hand and Upper Extremity section has is the opportunity to teach, learn, and grow alongside the orthopaedic surgery residents in the UT Southwestern training program. Dr. Golden currently serves as Associate Director of the Residency Program. The combination of the Parkland Memorial Hospital hand rotation and the Clements University Hospital/Zale Lipshy Pavilion rotation has established a paradigm in which the residents work intimately with the hand surgery faculty through each of their five training years without exception. This rotation affords a truly longitudinal experience for learning and growth. In addition to this combination of rotations, the section offers the continued opportunity to train two hand fellows annually through a combined program spearheaded by Doug Sammer, M.D., alongside the Department of Plastic Surgery. Additionally, the educational activity in the section includes weekly hand indications conferences on Tuesday mornings, weekly hand didactic lectures on Thursday mornings, and scheduled anatomy sessions. Efforts to expand hand and upper extremity knowledge extend beyond our own department as well with periodic invited lectures. The lectures are given in collaboration with the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, the Department of Plastic Surgery, the Department of Emergency Medicine, and other health care institutions in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.