More than 60 muscles and 27 bones comprise a hand, and eight bones and 12 ligaments make up the wrist.
A new surgeon has her fair share of work in treating both.
Hand surgeon Kelley Wear has seen it all, from snow blower accidents to carpal tunnel syndrome and trigger finger. She treats and repairs the small and delicate tendons, blood vessels, nerves and bones in the hands and wrists.
“It’s intellectually stimulating and technically challenging,” Wear said.
Wear started out in general surgery because she wanted to train in general surgery so she could help out in emergency situations and do general medicine in third-world countries, she said.
A few years ago, Wear traveled to Nepal, where she did general surgery for four weeks. The experience was sobering. She worked in a hospital with no running water and no way to wash her hands between patients. When someone needed antibiotics, the hospital had to appeal to a charity group, she said. She remembers a 17-year-old boy who died from appendicitis complications that easily could have been treated in the United States.
“It was horrible to sit and watch that and not be able to do anything,” she said.
But the doctor decided to pursue a more specialized type of surgery — on the hands — because she loves the simple machinery of them and they allow her to be creative.
Unlike a gall bladder surgery or an appendectomy, there is usually more than one way to solve a problem, she said.
Wear treats people of all ages, from infants born with Syndactyly (webbed fingers), to older people with wrist injuries.
She performs skin grafts and emergency amputations, with most surgeries lasting anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours. There’s a psychological dimension to hand surgery, Wear said, because people are attached to their hands and go through a grieving process if they lose it.
Keith Blanchard, a case manager at Hand Specialists, where Wear works, said even temporary loss of hand function because surgery can be traumatic. Simple things like getting dressed and cooking a meal become difficult, he said.
“People don’t know what they have unless they’ve lost it,” Blanchard said.
Until he started working at Hand Specialists, Blanchard had no idea how delicate but durable hands are.
“You can beat your hands up, and they still work for you,” he said.
People can prevent injuries by not doing pushups with their wrists extended and by avoiding excessive stress on their hands and wrists, Wear said. Heavy lifting and other activities can damage ligaments even if they don’t have pain right away, she said.
“When you think about stressing your hands, think twice,” Wear said.