Abstract
The advent of hand surgery in India reads like a fortuitous saga, a continuum of the
hand deformity correction on leprosy patients pioneered by Dr. Paul Wilson Brand at
the Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore, Madras State (Tamil Nadu [TN]), in 1948.
The “Hand Research Unit,” established in 1951, became the largest repository for hand
reconstructive surgeries and with its head-start drew in most hand dysfunctions in
the country. Early industrialization and disorderly road traffic generated hand injuries
that threatened workforce in India. Propitiously, a hand injury service was opened
in 1971 at the Government Stanley Medical College Hospital, Chennai. The inexorable
growth of hand surgery continued and incorporated the gamut of conditions that required
hand care and rehabilitation, including brachial plexus injuries. Continuing Medical
Education programs, Hand Surgery workshops, Indian Society for Surgery of the Hand
meetings, Hand Fellowships, etc., increased the number of “hand surgery” practitioners,
which drew the attention of the Medical Council of India to commence a postgraduate
Hand Surgery program that it eventually gazetted. The sagacity of the members of the
Board of Studies of TN Medical University honored the historical role of CMC Vellore
in hand surgery and allowed it to commence the first Master of Chirurgiae Hand Surgery
course in India in 2015. An intuitive understanding of 70 years of hand surgery accomplishments
that redesigned and restored deformed and injured hands and protected livelihoods
have made young surgeons increasingly take hand surgery as a career.
Keywords advent - hand surgery - Paul Brand - leprosy hand reconstruction - Hand Research unit
- hand injury service - Govt SMCH - TN Medical University - MCh Hand Surgery - career
