Faculty

Grainne Bourke
Leeds, UK

Grainne Bourke is a consultant hand and plastic surgeon in Leeds Teaching Hospitals, U.K. She has specialist interests in Children's hand surgery, major nerve injury and Hand and Upper Limb Transplantation.

Nick Downing
Nottingham, UK

Nick Downing has been Consultant Hand and Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Queen's Medical Centre, University Hospital Nottingham, and the East Midlands Major Trauma Centre, UK since 2002. He trained in hand surgery in Nottingham and Derby in the UK and in Sydney, Australia. He has a broad hand surgery trauma and elective practice with particular interests in distal radius and carpal injuries. He is a member of the Council of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand and has served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Hand Surgery (European Volume) since 2012.

Christian Dumontier
Guadeloupe/Paris, France

Christian Dumontier is a medical doctor, having a diploma in microsurgery, hand surgery, general surgery, DEA medical ethics. He is a PhD (Docteur en sciences de l’université, Ethique et droit de la santé - 2006), Associate professor (Paris) since 2002, associate member of the academy of surgery (2006) and professor of the university (2012). He is working for a private practice in Guadeloupe Island (French west indies) since may 2014. He has 102 publications in Medline and 19’ non referenced publications (book chapters,…) 797 oral presentations, of which 55 in international congresses. Experimental research area: Laser an microsurgery, Bone morphogenic protein. Clinical research activity: hand and face allotransplantantion (with Pr Lantiéri). He is responsible for the hand and upper limb diploma (Universities of Paris, Bobigny, Versailles, Lille, Strasbourg and Besançon), Arthroscopie monitor for the French Society of Arthroscopy, Teaching in Rehabilitation schools, nurse schools, medical school. He is also teaching in medical ethics (laboratoire de Paris Descartes)

Mireia Esplugas
Barcelona, Spain

Mireia Esplugas MD is co-director of Institut Kaplan in Barcelona, Spain. She specialized in orthopaedic surgery in 1995. Mireia Esplugas received the European Board Hand Surgery Examination Diploma in 2005 and was awarded with the Kaplan Award for Excellence in Anatomy in 2015. She was the president of the Spanish Society Congress in 2019. She was co-director of the Spanish Hand Surgery Society Reviews (Revista Iberoamericana de Cirurgía de la Mano (RICMA)) from 2016 to 2019. She has been member of the International Wrist Investigation Workshop (IWIW) since 2018. Her main field of research is carpal biomechanics. She is an active member and international faculty of the International Wrist Arthroscopy Society (IWAS) and became part of the IWAS board in 2019 as coordinator of European IWAS courses. She is also an active member of the FESSH Social Media Committee since 2017 and contributes to the work of FESSH Relationship Committee since 2021.

Sandra Garrelds
Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Mrs Garrelds trained as a physiotherapist and started her career in the neurology and orthopedics department of a rehabilitation center in Rotterdam. In 2012 she completed her Hand Therapy training with honours and in 2016 she obtained national accreditation as a Hand Therapist. She currently works in Basalt Rehabilitation Center, a specialized hand, wrist and elbow center in The Hague. She mainly works with complicated trauma patients who require multidisciplinary treatment.

Jonathan Hobby
Basingstoke, UK

Mr Jonathan Hobby is a consultant Hand & Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Hampshire Hospitals NHS FT. He is the honorary secretary of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand. He graduated from St. Thomas's Hospital in 1989 and did his postgraduate training on the St Bartholomew's surgical rotation and Cambridge Orthopaedic rotation. He completed an MD thesis on the clinical effectiveness of MRI of the wrist and was awarded a Hunterian Professorship by the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2001. He was awarded the Graham Stack travelling fellowship in 2009 and was an ASSH international travelling fellow in 2010. He has served on the BSSH council, chaired the BSSH research and audit committee, and was chair of the BSSH Instructional courses for series seven. His research interests include wrist imaging, hand outcome measures, small joint arthroplasty and the influence of psychological factors on hand surgery.

Steven Hovius
Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Steven Hovius is currently a part time staff member at Radboud University, Medical Centre Nijmegen and Xpert Clinic, Hand and Wrist Centre Rotterdam. He was formerly the Professor and Head of the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and Hand Surgery at the ErasmusMC University Medical Centre Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He is board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon and general surgeon. He has strong interest in hand and wrist surgery, more specific congenital hand differences, peripheral nerve pathology, tendon transfers, Dupuytren's Disease He is (Co)Author of 281 international publications (pubmed), 35 other publications, 32 chapters in international books and 7 chapters in national books. He is editor of 3 books, 15 national publications in Journals, promotor of 56 PhD theses, having 130 international invitations to present lectures. reviewer at many international journals (including Lancet, Hand journals, PRS, etc), and organizer of many national and international meetings. He is one of the past secretary generals of FESSH (1999 – 2002).

Wee Lam
Edinburgh, UK

Mr Wee Lam is a consultant Plastic and Hand Surgeon in Edinburgh. He was council member of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand and immediate past president of the British Foundation of International Reconstructive Surgery and Training (BFIRST), the official outreach arm of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS). He graduated from Edinburgh University and did his postgraduate training in Leeds and Manchester, with fellowships in Taiwan, Sheffield and Great Ormond Street. He has won the BSSH Journal of Hand Surgery prize, the Pulvertaft Essay prize and was awarded the ASSH international travelling fellowship in 2012, and the Graham Stack travelling fellowship in 2020. He was also awarded the Sonic Hedgehog prize for best paper at the World Congenital Hand Symposium in 2015. He is a current editor for the Journal of Hand Surgery (European). His research interests include collaborative work between congenital hand surgery and developmental biology, spasticity and surgical education.

Balazs Lenkei
Miskolc, Hungary

President of the Hungarian Hand Surgery Society, Associate Head of the Trauma and Hand Surgery Department in the BAZ County Teaching Hospital, Director of TritonLife Debrecen Private Hospital, AO Hungary National Faculty Member, Examiner in the FESSH Examination Committee, Examiner in the Hungarian National Hand Surgery training program, Examiner in the Hungarian National Traumatology training program

I started working in 2003. Right now, I am the associate leader of a trauma and hand surgery center in Miskolc, Hungary. In everyday life this is the biggest part of my professional activity. I deal with managing the daily issues of the unit a lot and take part in the outpatient care, operative activity, and duty system as well. My interest in upper extremity injuries and disorders is accepted in our unit so I operate mainly these patients, but as a trauma surgeon sometimes I need to fix ankle or hip fractures as well. I enjoy participating in teaching of the younger colleagues, this way I got to be a national faculty member in the AO group. Since 2019. I am an examiner in the FESSH examination committee. The group of this committee consists of wonderful people. The meetings and examinations are very fruitful for me. Being the director of a private hospital is kind of new to me, but I enjoy it as it gives a lot of success experience.

Alex Lluch
Barcelona, Spain

Dr. Àlex Lluch was born in Barcelona in 1970. Decided to dedicate to Hand Surgery since attending a tendon and nerve reconstruction surgery as a first year medical student. After his Residence period in Orthopaedic Surgery & Trauma in Vall d'Hebron University Hospital (Barcelona), trained in Hand & Wrist Surgery with his mentors Alberto Lluch and Marc Garcia-Elias in Institut Kaplan (Barcelona) combined with frequent formation visits around the world. Currently he is the Chief of the Hand. Wrist & Peripheral Nerve Unit in Vall d'Hebron University Hospital and co-director of Institut Kaplan. He has special interest in the painful wrist and carpal instabilities, reason why he has contributed to create the International Wrist Biomechanics Study Group. He is member of the Relationship Committee of FESSH.

David Shewring
Cardiff, UK

David Shewring is a Consultant Hand Surgeon appointed in Cardiff in 1994. He trained in Orthopaedic and Hand Surgery in Southampton, Cambridge, Cardiff and Oxford. He serves on FESSH Council as Chairman of the Education and Training Committee. He is currently Chairman of the Committee of Management of the Journal of Hand Surgery (European Volume) and led the successful BSSH bid to host the 2022 Joint IFSSH/IFSHT Congress in London, which will be its first time in the UK. He was president of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand for 2018. Outside medicine, his interests include the cultivation of citrus, oenology and, now that he can't play anymore, watching his sons play rugby.

Pierluigi Tos
Milan, Italy

Specialized in Orthopaedic Surgery and Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery
Head of the Hand Surgery and Reconstructive Microsurgery Unit, Orthopaedic Institute Gaetano Pini-CTO di Milan, Italy
Chairman of FESSH Hand Trauma Commettee since 2017
Former President of the Italian Society for Microsurgery
President of the Italian Group of Microsurgery and Limbs Reconstruction of the Italian Society of Orthopaedics
Contract Professor of the University of Milan School of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery
International Delegate for the Italian Society for Surgery of the Hand (SICM) at IFSSH
European Delegate for the Italian Society for Microsurgery at the EFSM
President of the Italian Editorial Commission of the Italian Society for Hand Surgery
Deputy Director and Scientific Board of the Italian Journal of Hand Surgery (Rivista Italiana di Chirurgia della Mano) - official journal of SICM (Italian Society for Surgery of the Hand)
Former President of the Teaching Commission for the Italian Society for Microsurgery and Hand Surgery

Brigitte van der Heijden
's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands

Brigitte van der Heijden is plastic surgeon, specialized in Hand and Wrist Surgery and her field of interest is treatment of arthrosis and trauma. She is acting chairman of the FESSH Congress Committee, and she was the president of the Dutch Society for Surgery of the Hand (2018). She works in the Jeroen Bosch Hospital in 's-Hertogenbosch.

Erik Walbeehm
Oosterbeek, Netherlands

Erik Walbeehm trained in the Erasmusmc in Rotterdam and with a subsequent fellowship in Manchester, UK. He defended his PhD thesis in peripheral nerve regeneration in 2004. He worked as a consultant Plastic - and Hand surgeon at the Erasmusmc and the Radboudumc. Since 2022 he works in the Lange Land and HAGA hospitals and the Xpert Clinic. His main focus remains peripheral nerve surgery, both clinically as well as scientifically.