BALTIMORE — A team of 14 hand surgeons at MedStar Health’s Curtis National Hand Center at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore City is taking on some of the most complex hand cases in the nation.
On Thursday, the center officially launched the Complex Case Clinic, a free monthly program that brings together top hand surgeons to collaborate on treatment options.
Dr. James Higgins said the partnership between the doctors is essential.
Baltimore hand surgeons launch free monthly clinic to collaborate on complex cases and transform lives
“It may be that I’m faced with a patient where I say I think I have a innovative or an ideal way to take care of this problem, but I’d love to hear other opinions,” Dr. Higgins said.
Assembling a collaborative team opens up a wider range of treatment options for patients, Higgins said.
“And so we’ve now created this complex case clinic whereby we can bring those patients to the larger group we usually holding in an evening once a month and it’s actually free to the patients so we say would you mind coming back? I have some great ideas that my partners may have even better ideas and when we arrive, we will all get the opportunity to examine the patient interview them and come up with some plans or formulate reconstructive options for them,” said Dr. Higgins.
One of those patients is 37-year-old Scott Price, who came to Baltimore from Pennsylvania after a work injury.
“The day of my injury I was operating a machine and it ended up, kicking a log into my hand and pushed it to a steel plate, and I cut my thumb and pointer finger off,” Price said.
A local hospital attempted to reattach his index finger and thumb, but was unsuccessful.
“When this initially happened and I thought like, wow my life is gonna be drastically different,” Price said.
Price was referred to Higgins, who offered him a chance to have his hand back by using his toe.
“I was kinda anxious and excited to do it because it was pretty difficult going from having all my fingers to losing a thumb so I was hopeful and it definitely paid off,” Price said.
It has been a year since the operation, and although his hand looks different, he is able to work the same.
“From like the very beginning to now it’s just night and day difference. I would say I can do pretty much everything that I used to be able to,” Price said.
Having a second opinion was the difference between living with a prosthetic, having no fingers at all, and having full use of his hand, Price said.
Thursday’s Complex Case Clinic was the first in the program. The group of surgeons will meet with patients for free once a month.
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