Healing Hands

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Dr Alejandro Badia reviews x-ray imagery with local doctors after a presentation at the Marriot, Invaders Bay. Photo by Mark Lyndersay. Inset images of a before and after case of ulnar drift courtesy of Dr Badia.

“There is a nexus of different medical disciplines in the hand,” Dr Alejandro Badia explains to a group of medical professionals at the Marriott at a meeting two weeks ago.

The hand is a particularly complex arrangement of muscle, nerves, fine articulated bones and blood vessels that is all too easily damaged and is uniquely challenging to repair. Fusing, for instance, the abandonment of movement in a digit to control pain, remains a valid, if last ditch option in hand surgery.

For several of those in attendance, this is stuff they learned before they cut their first cadaver. For the few lay persons in attendance, it’s a revelation, as Badia leads the group through an explanation of his techniques.

It’s a surprisingly frank and open session. Badia doesn’t hide the techniques he uses. In fact, part of his mission is to teach them—which he and a group of partners do at the Miami Hand Center—and to

expand the scope of those learning opportunities at the Miami Anatomical Research Center ( M.A.R.C.) www.surgicaltraining.com, an 18,000 square foot facility under construction near South Beach in Miami.