S. Raja Sabapathy

Dr. Raja Sabapathy is the Chairman of the Department of Plastic Surgery, Hand and Reconstructive Surgery and Burns at Ganga Hospital, Coimbatore, India.

He graduated from Stanley Medical College in Madras, India, as the Best Outgoing Student in 1979. He did his plastic surgery residency at the same institution, and later trained for 2 years at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital and the Canniesburn Hospital in the United Kingdom. He did his Hand Fellowship at the Kleinert Institute in Louisville, Kentucky in 1989–1990. Upon his return to Coimbatore, he developed the unit at Ganga Hospital, which has since emerged as one of the premier trauma reconstructive and replantation surgical centers in South Asia.

His main interests are hand surgery and reconstructive microsurgery. In 2005, he delivered the Douglas Lamb Lecture of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand on Major Replantations at the Royal College of Surgeons. He has held the presidencies of the Indian Society for Surgery of the Hand, the Indian Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery, and the Association of Plastic Surgeons of India. He was the Organizing Chairman of the 12^th Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand held in New Delhi, India in March 2013.

Dr. Sabapathy has put together a superb group of experts for this issue. I want to thank him for his hard work serving as the guest editor of this excellent edition of Seminars.