International Faculty

Jonathan Hobby - Course Chair
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.

Balazs Lenkei - Course Co-Chair
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.

Ariane Asmus
Berlin, Germany

Dr. Ariane Asmus is a senior consultant of the Department of Hand-, Replantation- and Microsurgery of the BG Trauma Center Berlin. She studied medicine and graduated at the Charité Berlin. She is a consultant for general and trauma surgery and continued her training at the BG Trauma Center Berlin in the Department for Hand rehabilitation during which she worked on her PhD about the effect of a specialized hand rehabilitation program. In 2013 she passed the board qualification for hand surgery and her PhD exam at the University of Greifswald. In 2014-2015 she worked as senior consultant at Greifswald University Medicine, Department of Hand and functional microsurgery and after returning back to the Berlin BG Trauma Center collaborated and worked with the university on research projects which include carpal injuries, carpal kinematics, TFCC and CRPS as well as tutoring young surgeons in hands-on courses. In collaboration with the plastic department of her hospital she is part of the board for reconstruction and free flaps. In 2016 she became a fellow of EBHS and since 2019 serves as a member of the board of examiners of EBHS. She is a member of the scientific advisory board of the magazine “Hand Surgery Scan” and in 2022 achieved the expert certificate in hand surgery from the DGH (German Society for Hand Surgery).

Grainne Bourke
Leeds, UK

Gráinne Bourke FRCSI, FRCS(Plast) is a Consultant in Plastic and Reconstructive surgery at the Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust since 2004. She completed her basic surgical training in Dublin, Ireland before moving to Yorkshire to train in Plastic and Reconstructive surgery. She completed an international fellowship in children hand surgery and major nerve injuries in 2003/2004.
She has specialist interests in microsurgery in children and adult, children's hand surgery and nerve injuries in adult and children.
She has research interests in nerve repair, congenital hand anomalies and plastic surgery reconstruction. She is the Academic Supervisor of the Specialist Registrar NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Plastic Surgery, overseeing novel research into the role of MRI in brachial plexus injuries.

Dean Boyce
Swansea, UK

Dean Boyce is Clinical Director of the Welsh Hand & Peripheral Nerve Surgery and the Welsh Centre for Plastic Surgery & Burns. He was appointed in 2003 after training in South Wales, the West Midlands, Manchester, Wrightington, and Sydney, Australia. He has a strong academic background, having been awarded a Hunterian Professorship for research into human and foetal scarless wound healing. His current research areas mirror his clinical interests in peripheral nerve & brachial plexus surgery, congenital hand surgery, upper limb cerebral palsy and Dupuytren's disease. He is heavily involved in postgraduate training as selection lead for the UK ATP Fellowships in Hand Surgery and as past Chair of Education & Training for the British Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons. He is the Immediate Past President of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand, and a Council Member of the British Association for Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery.

Adeline Cambon
Paris, France

Adeline Cambon in associated professor in Orthopaedics in Sorbonne University, Paris. She is head of hand surgery in the department of Orthopaedic and upper limb surgery in Saint Antoine Hospital. She is examiner in the FESSH examination committee since 2021. Her mains interests in Upper limb surgery are nerve and rheumatoid disorders and post-traumatic reconstruction. As coordinator for Sorbonne University of the French interuniversitay Hand surgery diploma, she is involved a lot in teaching hand surgery and soft tissue reconstruction including flaps in upper limb and orthopaedic surgeons. Her research focuses on pathophysiology of osteoarthritis, especially at the hand level, subject in which she graduated with PhD in biology in 2021.

Christian Dumontier
Guadeloupe/Paris, France

Christian Dumontier is a medical doctor, with a PhD in ethics and health law.
He is an associate member of the academy of surgery and was professor of plastic and hand Surgery in Nice.
He is currently working in a private practice in Guadeloupe Island (French West Indies).
His main area of interests are teaching. His current research is about infection, hand trauma and nail surgery. He is a member of the FESSH examiners board and has been instruction for the FESSH Academy

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 the vice president of EWAS.

Ales Fibir
Hradec Králové, Czech Republic

Aleš Fibír, MD, PhD, is the Head of the Department of Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery and Burn Treatment at the University Hospital Hradec Králové and Chairman of the Czech Society for Surgery of the Hand. He also serves as the Head of the Department of Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Hradec Králové, overseeing undergraduate and postgraduate surgical education. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, and completed his postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Military Health Sciences, University of Defence in Hradec Králové. As a board-certified plastic surgeon, he specializes in hand surgery and plastic and reconstructive surgery, including breast and soft tissue reconstructions and aesthetic surgery in private practice. He is a member of several professional societies and their boards, and he actively participates in teaching and organizing courses in hand surgery and plastic surgery in the Czech Republic.

Grey Giddins
Bath, UK

I work as an Orthopaedic and Hand surgeon in Bath since 1995. I have particular interests in the management of common hand injuries, the mechanism and outcome of falls on the wrist, distal radius fractures, DRUJ injuries and minimal access surgery for many common elective hand conditions. I run a specialist practice in brachial plexus injuries, wrist and DRUJ pathology, and rheumatoid arthritis. I have an interest in surgical error and its avoidance.

I am a visiting professor in the Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Bath. I have an NIHR grant to develop a novel drill guide system.

I was President of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand in 2017, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Hand Surgery (European) from 2012-2016 and a Hunterian Professor in 2022.

Xavier Gueffier
Lyon, France

Dr. Xavier Gueffier is a hand surgeon based in Lyon, France. He received specialist training in hand surgery at the Edouard Herriot Hospital under the supervision of Professor Guillaume Herzberg. Additionally, he completed a medical doctorate thesis focusing on the functional outcomes of the first bilateral hand allograft.
Since 2008, Dr. Gueffier has been practicing at a private hospital in Bourgoin Jallieu. He successfully passed the European Board of Hand Surgery examination in 2016 and has served as an examiner since 2019. Dr. Gueffier has been pioneering the use of Ultrasound and Wide Awake Local Anesthesia No Tourniquet (WALANT) surgery in his daily practice since 2018.
In 2024, he organized and chaired the first edition of the Hand Val d'Isere course, which focused on innovation in hand surgery.

Elisabeth Haas-Lützenberger
Munich, Germany

Elisabeth Haas-Lützenberger studied human medicine at the Paracelsus Medical University (PMU) in Salzburg (Austria). In 2012 she started her professional career as a resident at the Division for Handsurgery, Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery at the University Hospital, LMU Munich. She completed her residency in 2018 and currently works as a senior consultant for Hand, Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery.

Her particular interest in Hand surgery was mainly determined in 2013 when she was awarded with the FESSH Travel Award and had the chance to visit FESSH Hand Trauma Centers in France and Italy. The Travel Award gave her the chance to get in touch with top European Hand surgeons helping her to substantiate her general interest in Education in Hand surgery.

Besides her work with students at her home university, she was co-founder in 2017 of YEHS (Young European Hand Surgeons) and worked as an executive board member until 2022 (vice-president & head of social media). On national level, Elisabeth was elected as president of the Young Forum of the DGH (German Society for Hand Surgery

Wee Lam
Singapore, Singapore

I graduated from the University of Edinburgh and did my basic surgical training in Leeds. Thereafter I completed my Plastic Surgery training in Manchester, followed by a microsurgery fellowship at Chang Gong Memorial hospital, Taiwan, a hand fellowship in Sheffield, UK and a congenital hand fellowship at Great Ormond Street, London. I was a Consultant Plastic and Hand Surgeon at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, Edinburgh and St John's Hospital, Livingston until 2023 when i returned to Singapore for a post as Senior Consultant at Singapore General Hospital. My interest is in both adult and paediatric hand surgery, particularly nerve-related injuries including the management of stroke and spasticity disorders. I have a keen interest in research and am currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Hand Surgery (European volume).

Caroline Leclercq
Paris, France

Caroline Leclercq is a senior Hand Surgeon at the Institut de la Main (Paris France), of which she is the current President, after Raoul Tubiana then Alain Gilbert.

Former President of the French Society for Surgery of the Hand, and member of the French "Académie de Chirurgie", she is also Honorary member of the British (BSSH) and the Australian Society for Surgery of the Hand, and Member of the American (ASSH), Hellenic, Italian and Colombian Societies for Surgery of the Hand.

Her main sub-specialty is neuro-orthopaedics of the upper limb, especially in the fields of tetraplegia and spasticity. She organizes yearly Master Classes on the treatment of the Spastic Upper Limb, and is a consultant in 10 neurological rehabilitation centers (both adult and children). Her current clinical research involves nerve procedures in the treatment of spasticity. Her other fields of interest, besides paralytic and spastic upper limb, are Dupuytren's disease, sports injuries, and hand tumors.

She is the author of 7 books and more than 100 scientific articles and book chapters, and has presented more than 70 oral presentations at National and International Society Meetings. She is heavily involved in post-graduate teaching, both nationally and internationally. She was Assistant Editor of the European Journal of Hand Surgery for 9 years and is a member of the FESSH (Federation of European Societies for Surgery of the Hand) Education Committee.

Ole Reigstad
Oslo, Norway

Ole Reigstad (1969) is working as hand surgery consultant and is head of Hand and Foot department at Martina Hansens Hospital in Oslo, Norway. He is MD (1998), specialist in orthopedic surgery (2006), and defended his PhD "Wrist arthroplasty: bone fixation, clinical development and mid- to long term results" in 2013. He has the Norwegian Diploma in Hand surgery (2011) and is a fellow of the European Board of Hand Surgery (EBHS) from 2017. His research interest includes a variety of orthopedic and hand surgery subjects, with a special interest in carpal injuries, scaphoid non-union, wrist and hand arthrosis, small joint arthroplasties and biomaterials. He is tutoring medical students and specialist candidates in hand surgery and teaches at specialist courses in orthopedic and hand surgery in Norway and Sweden and on international courses including FESSH academy courses. He has published more than 35 peer reviewed papers as well as book chapters. In 2011 he was part of the organizing committee for FESSH (Oslo) and is a member of the scientific committee for FESSH 2024 (Rotterdam). He is Norwegian delegate and vice president to the Scandinavian Society for Surgery of the Hand (SSSH).

Martin Richter
Bonn, Germany

Education and exam in General Surgery (1987-94). Qualification in Sports Medicine. 1994-1999 Education and Diploma in Plastic Surgery and Handsurgery (Prof. Brueser, Bonn). 2005 -2007 FESSH Delegate for German Society for Surgery of the Hand (DGH). Since march 2008 Head of the department for Hand-, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery of the Helios Klinikum (former Malteserhospital Bonn). Since 2008 Chairman of education and training committee DGH. FESSH examiner 2011-2022. 2013 Chairman of Scientifc Committee of FESSH Congress in Antalya/Turkey. 2015/16 President of the German Society for Surgery of the Hand (DGH). Chairman of FESSH examination committee 2016-2022. 2018 Chairman of Instructional Course "Fractures of Hand and Wrist" FESSH Congress Copenhagen, Denmark. Since Oktober 2022 President of the BIRG (Bone Implant Research Group).

Janos Rupnik
Budapest, Hungary

Trained at Semmelweis Medical University Budapest. Consultant in hand surgery, traumatology and orthopedics. Medical economist. Health care quality assurance manager. Consultant hand surgeon at Manninger Trauma Center, Budapest. Former secretary general of the Hungarian Society of Surgery of the Hand. Member of the FESSH Examination Committee.Examiner in the Hungarian Hand Surgery training program. Regional hand surgery supervisor, Hungary.

Jorma Ryhänen
Helsinki, Finland

Dr. Jorma Ryhänen is a Head and Professor of Hand Surgery at Helsinki University Hospital.

Prof. Ryhänen received his M.D. degree from The University of Oulu in 1989. He qualified as a Specialist in Surgery and later as a Specialist in Hand surgery (2000).
He finished his PhD thesis 1999 (Dr.Med., Ph.D.) deal with surgical biomaterials. Further, he received a position as an associate Professor of Hand Surgery (University of Oulu, 2003) and also a position as an associate Professor of Biomaterial Engineering (Institute of Biomaterials, Tampere University of Technology, 2004).

Prof. Ryhänen has been a board member of examiners of qualifications in hand surgery in Finland during the years 2001-2022. He has been a responsible supervisor of over 20 graduated hand surgery registrars. He has been in charge of Hand Surgery teaching at University of Oulu (2000-2011) and the University of Kuopio (2004-2009). Since 2017 he has been a chief and now also working as a Professor being responsible person for the Hand Surgery teaching and training program at the University of Helsinki.

Significant positions of Prof. Ryhänen in scientific societies include the Finnish Society for Surgery of the Hand (past Chair) and the Finnish Society of Surgery (past board member).
He is the Finnish delegate of FESSH.
He has been a Permanent Medical Expert in the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health and a Permanent Medical Expert in The Finnish Patient Insurance Centre for several years.

Prof. Ryhänen is a member of The Finnish Medical Association (FMA), The Finnish Society of Surgery, The Finnish Society for Surgery of the Hand (FSSH). He is also a member of the FESSH, ASSH, and SSSH societies.

The scientific interests of Prof. Ryhänen are focused on several clinical fields of hand surgery, as well as biomaterials, epidemiology, and artificial intelligence solutions in hand surgery. He has been writer or co-writer in a tremendous amount of original articles, several books and other publications in the field. He has been a supervisor or opponent of several doctoral dissertations and other academic theses. Prof. Ryhänen has participated in numerous meetings as course chair, faculty and moderator. He has been an invited lecturer in several countries worldwide and continues to be active as a scientific reviewer (and editor) of various journals.

The clinical practice includes every field of hand surgery (trauma and reconstructive surgery, plexus, toe transfers, etc.). Still, his main interest is focusing on hand transplantation surgery, and he is leading a project on this in his hospital.

Among other duties, Prof. Ryhänen will be the President of the FESSH Congress in Helsinki in 2025.

Gill Smith
London, UK

Gill decided on a career in hand surgery as a 3rd year medical student. After registrar training in Birmingham, with hand fellowships in Pulvertaft Hand Centre in Derby, Christine M Kleinert Institute for hand and microsurgery in Louisville and in Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, she was appointed as a substantive consultant to Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury. She has run the congenital hand practice in Great Ormond Street Hospital since 2007, temporarily ran the service for Edinburgh and has supported other services.

She now works part- time between Great Ormond Street Hospital and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, with a practice concentrated on the upper limb, combining both plastic surgery and orthopaedic approaches to care.

Her research interests include radial ray dysplasia, epidermolysis bullosa and Apert syndrome.

She has been invited to speak nationally and internationally. She is an active member of the American and British hand societies

Assistant Faculty

Nicolas Bigorre
Angers, France

Nicolas Bigorre is a consultant at the Hand Trauma Center in Angers, where he also resided in orthopaedics before specialising in hand surgery from 2012.
In addition to his engagement in the training of hand surgery residents at his home university, he has held the position of co-director of the microsurgery diploma in Angers since 2019.
On a national level, he was elected Secretary General of the French College of Hand Surgery in 2022. In this role, he works to improve the teaching of this specialty to align standards with those of the EBSH, from which he graduated in 2015. He has also been a consultant member of the Société Française de Chirurgie de la Main since 2022.
His research focuses mainly on traumatology of the hand, trapeziometacarpal join osteoarthritis and neurological canal syndromes and amyloidosis.

Mahdi Siala
Nice, France

Mahdi Siala is an upper limb surgeon working in Nice and Cannes, France. He is a senior consultant at the Hand to shoulder Riviera Center.
Graduating medical school from Paris Descartes University in Paris (currently Paris cité University), he did his surgical training in Toulouse, France and a year at Noumea, New Caledionia focusing on hand and general trauma alongside elective surgery.
In 2018 he joined the Kaplan institute in Barcelona for a 6 months fellowship in hand and wrist surgery under the direction of Marc Garcià-Elias.
Dr SIALA is also a medical expert for court in litigious surgical cases.
Academically Dr Siala holds various diplomas in hand, shoulder, sports and orthopedic surgery and passed the European Board of Orthopedics and Traumatology (EBOT) the same year as the FESSH examination, the European Board of Hand Surgery (EBHS) in 2022.
He authored several articles and book chapters both in hand and orthopedic surgery and has peer reviewed articles for several scientific journals (Journal of shoulder and elbow surgery, Hand suregery and rehabilitation, international orthopaedics and journal of hand and microsurgery).
Dr Siala is also a teaching member of the french college of orthopedic surgeons and the french college of hand surgery teachers.

Mirjam Thielen
Straubing, Germany

Mirjam Thielen is the head of the Department of Hand Surgery at St. Elisabeth Hospital in Straubing. She is board-certified in Orthopedic and Trauma Surgery, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and Hand Surgery and was trained at Heidelberg University Hospital and the BG Trauma Center in Ludwigshafen. She is actively involved in training younger colleagues in Hand Surgery, as well as students at her home university in Orthopedic, Trauma, and Hand Surgery.
In 2023, she had the great opportunity to be one of the FESSH/SICM traveling fellows in Italy and visited different centers in Milan and Torino. This fellowship was an exceptional experience, expanding her perspectives, enriching her horizon, and substantially increasing her general interest in education in Hand Surgery.
Her research interests focus on 3D movement analysis of the upper limb, including the hand, as well as diagnostics and outcome measures for patients with a spastic upper limb.