Scandinavian Society for Surgery of the Hand SSSH

Scandinavian Society for Surgery of the Hand SSSH


IFSSH Delegate:
Dr Jan-Ragnar Haugstvedt
Dept of Orthopedics
Division for Hand and Microsurgery
Rikshospitalet
N-0027 Oslo
Norway

e-mail:jan-ragnar.haugstvedt@rikshospitalet.no

The Scandinavian Society for Surgery of the Hand- The beginning
by Nils Carstam, the first secretary of the Nordic Hand Surgery Club

The Nordic Hand Surgery Club - later to become the Scandinavian Society for Surgery of the Hand - was founded upon an inititative from professor Erik Moberg, Gothenburg, during the meeting of the Nordic Surgical Federation in Copenhagen in 1951.

Erik Moberg was inspired by new knowledge and principles in the treatment of hand injuries that had started with Sterling Bunnell in San Francisco in the early 1920s. Based on experience collected during and after WW1 several miltary Hand Centres were built. The running of these was led and coordinated by Bunnell. Erik Moberg gave a lecture on these principles at the meeting in Copenhagen.

The Club was informally organized with Moberg as a leader and with a "network" of contacts in the Nordic countries. The purpose of the club was to spread knowledge about different modes of treatment and to give lectures at surgical and orhtopedic meetings. A literature "circle" was started with Nils Carstam as a secretary, circulating hand surgery papers from various scientific journals. This form of spredaing hand surgery literature existed for 10 years. During these years the society also held separate meetings in conjunction with surgical and orthopedic conferences.

The swedish society for hand surgery was the first hand surgery society to be founded outside the USA, a fact which was often commented upon by Sterling Bunnell. Approximately one year later a similar society was founded in Great Britain with Graham Stack and Guy Pulvertaft as chairmen. The two societies enjoyed a good relationship and during the 1960s arranged meetings together both in the UK and in Sweden.