18 June 2013
Jaclyn and I
were at National Hospital to shadow Dr. Pelser during his office visits. Dr.
Pelser is an orthopedic surgeon who specializes with the hand and wrist. The
majority of the office visits were concerning minor issues. Most issues were
mended with some corticosteroid injections and time for healing.
One of the
most interesting things we saw was an X-ray of a wrist replacement. It worked
by using a ball and socket joint mechanism. One end of the wrist was screwed
into the radius and the other was screwed into the middle metacarpal, positioning
the ball and socket joint in the center of the wrist. Both screws were coated
with calcium so they would fuse with the patient’s bones to give more
stability. Also, the replacement left the majority of the bones in the wrist intact,
maintaining the structural integrity of the wrist.
Another interesting
case was a young man who had a deformity in the index finger of his left hand,
causing his finger to be at least an inch shorter than normal. He was born with the deformity and has never
been able to bend his index finger. Now the deformity was causing him pain and
swelling as the bones around it continued to grow. From the X-ray, the index
finger looked normal to me, except that it was smaller. Dr. Pelser pointed out
that there were some deformities of the bones and joints at the knuckles of the
index and middle fingers. I'll get you an updated prognosis when we see Dr. Pelser again this Thursday.
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