Date:30/06/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/06/30/stories/2009063055610700.htm

Andhra Pradesh

“Hand’le with care” wins best paper award

Special Correspondent

Founder president of Plastic Surgeons’ Association DLN Prasad giving away Best Paper Award to G. Satish in Hyderabad recently.

GUNTUR: A Guntur-based plastic surgeon G. Satish has suggested a new protocol for handling burns on the hands and the technical paper presented by him at the 8th Plastic Surgeons’ Association’s A.P. conference at Osmania General Hospital, Hyderabad, won him “The Best Paper Award”.

The paper titled “Hand’le with Care” recognised the importance of managing even smallest burn on hands and providing it the highest priority compared to any other organ. “Hand is the most important organ of the body. You will be surprised if I say, probably more than the heart, since if there is a heart failure, you are no more alive, but if your hands fail, you are alive but practically dead. You have to depend on others for each and everything in day to day life,” explains Dr. Satish.

Any physician handling hand burns had to focus on function of the hand in mind and not ‘wound healing’, which was normally the goal in any burns case, he observed. In a country where plastic surgeons were scarce, patients get treatment form general practitioners and unqualified doctors.

Many of these hand burns end up in deformities which could be avoided. Many people would be surprised about kids, whose hands received simple burn injury in hot water or boiling rice, etc. end up in contractures and deformities due to lack of sufficient primary care, he points out.

To streamline such issues, he presented a paper on management of hand burns with a title “Hand’le with Care”. He developed a protocol and methodology through which any physician could be trained to treat hand burns with competence. A developing country like India cannot afford to have people with hand deformities, he added.

The presentation won the award and Founder president of the Association DLN Prasad, who was former professor of Plastic Surgery, Osmania General hospital / Medical College, gave away the certificate and cash reward.