HAND SURGERY DAY IN INDIA: Preserving the Hands that Build the Future

Every year, August 23 holds a special significance for India’s medical community. This day is observed as Hand Surgery Day in India, marking the formal birth of the Indian Society for Surgery of the Hand (ISSH) in 1973. The ISSH was born with a vision to bring together surgeons passionate about restoring hand function and to advance the science and art of hand surgery in India. This day is not merely a commemoration of a Societal milestone; it is rather a reminder of the priceless role our hands play in shaping our lives, livelihoods, and identity. As reflected by Dr. R. Venkataswami, pioneer of Indian hand surgery, “When we save a hand, we save a profession, a passion, and sometimes a person’s place in society.”

Safe Hands, Full Life

The theme for this year’s National Hand Surgery Day is ‘Safe Hands, Full Life.’ The message is simple yet profound: that is, our lives and livelihoods are deeply tied to the well-being of our hands. It is more than a slogan; a reminder that safeguarding our hands today secures our ability to live fully, create freely, care deeply, and embrace tomorrow safely. It is a reminder that while surgical skill can restore, the greatest achievement lies in protection through safety and prevention.

The theme focuses on three key areas: Safe Hands at Work & Play; Stop the Injury Before It Starts; and Small Hands, Big Protection. Together, they emphasize the importance of hand safety across all walks of life—from the workplace and the sports field to the home where children explore their world.

“Safe Hands at Work & Play” draws attention towards the injuries sustained in the workplace, on sports fields, and during hobbies, the areas where safety protocols are often neglected. Protective equipment, training, and awareness can drastically reduce such preventable injuries. “Stop the Injury Before It Starts” emphasizes proactive prevention through ergonomics, safe tool use, and necessary precautions, recognizing that the best way to treat an injury is to prevent it altogether.

“Small Hands, Big Protection” is equally critical, calling attention to child safety—whether from kitchen burns, finger-trap door injuries, or accidents with sharp tools. Safeguarding children’s hands is not only an act of care but an investment in their future and the strength of our society.

The long-term impact of embracing this theme is far-reaching. A cultural shift toward valuing hand safety could reduce the burden of hand injuries, disability, and loss of productivity. Hospitals and professional societies can amplify this by organizing awareness camps, school visits, workplace demonstrations, and media campaigns. Pamphlets, safety toolkits, and community outreach can extend the message beyond hospital walls, ensuring it resonates within families, workers, and children alike, and can plant the seeds of long-term behavioural change.

The hand is basically a masterpiece of form and function- yet, it is as fragile as it is powerful-vulnerable to injury, disease, and deformity. In a country where millions depend on manual labour, whether farming, construction, factory work, or crafts, loss of hand function can mean loss of livelihood. Unlike many other injuries, a damaged hand affects nearly every aspect of daily living: earning an income, feeding oneself, writing, driving, and even the simplest acts of personal care.

Prevention: The Best Defence, The Best Cure

In hand surgery, the greatest victory is not in the operating theatre but in prevention. Many injuries occur not because machines are inherently unsafe, but because people are poorly trained, distracted, or careless. A moment’s lapse, for instance, answering a call, chatting with a co-worker, or working while fatigued, is enough for a machine to crush, mutilate, or even take away a hand. Every machine comes with safety protocols and guidelines; they are not meant to gather dust on paper but to be followed in black and white.

Certain injuries are especially devastating. Ring avulsion injuries, when a simple ring gets caught in machinery or a hook, can strip soft tissue over the bones in an instant. Similarly, rope avulsions, too, are common in rural settings. Electrical burns are among the most catastrophic, destroying not only skin and muscle but also vessels, nerves, and bones, leaving patients permanently disabled. Door-trap injuries in children, careless handling of fireworks during festivals, unsafe threshers in agriculture, and exposed sockets at home all add to this tragic burden. Hence, the mantra is to save hands by preventing injuries in these situations, from these agents, and beyond. Prevention today means protection for a lifetime. The truth is simple: the hand is life. It feeds us, earns our livelihood, and expresses our very identity. If it is lost, life itself is diminished. Prevention, therefore, is not a side-note, but the foundation. By enforcing training, respecting protocols, wearing protective gear, child-proofing homes, and spreading awareness, we can save not just hands, but futures.

First Aid: Bridging Gaps

The Golden Hour: Rapid and accurate initial evaluation and treatment can minimise the long-term effects of the injury. Public awareness about the right first-aid is as crucial as surgical expertise, for what happens in the first hour often decides whether a hand is saved or lost. The essentials are simple: control of bleeding with gentle pressure, wound cleaning, immobilization of the hand, and preserving any amputated part in a moist cloth, sealed in a bag, and placed on ice. Above all, reach specialist care without delay.

Unfortunately, misinformation and harmful traditional practices like applying turmeric, ash, or using tight tourniquets can turn salvageable injuries into permanent disabilities. Furnishing the correct first-aid knowledge to the general public is, therefore, the true first step in hand surgery, where saving function begins long before the operating theatre, at the site of injury.

Why Hand Surgery Matters

In hand surgery, a millimetre can decide a lifetime of function. Hand surgeons do not merely repair broken bones—they restore strength, sensation, fine motor skills, and the subtle ability to feel texture, temperature, and vibration. Their goal is not just anatomical repair, but a return to independence and dignity.

The Expansive Scope of Hand Surgery: When Prevention Meets Precision

Modern hand surgery brings together plastic surgery, orthopaedics, microsurgery, and rehabilitation to restore not just anatomy but lives. In a country where livelihoods often depend on manual work, saving a hand means saving a family’s future. The burden is immense: factory accidents, farm injuries, road crashes, kitchen mishaps, and even firecracker blasts leave thousands with crushed, burnt, or amputated hands each year. In such cases, time is critical—early surgery often draws the line between recovery and lifelong disability. Yet the field goes beyond trauma. Children born with hand deformities gain both function and confidence through timely correction. Nerve injuries, tendon ruptures, infections, tumours, and vascular anomalies demand equal skill, where precision and planning make the difference.

Rehabilitation: The Road to Recovery After Surgery

The operation may repair the hand, but it is rehabilitation that restores its life. Surgeons often say that ninety per cent of recovery lies not in the stitches or the sutures, but in what happens afterwards. Splints, guided movements, and disciplined therapy are not optional extras, but are rather the very heart of healing. If therapy is ignored, function is lost, no matter how brilliant the surgery is! A perfectly repaired tendon will stiffen without exercise; a replanted finger will wither without motion. There is a golden period to begin physiotherapy as well, and every condition has its set protocol. Delay it, and the window closes forever.

Hand therapy is, simply, the bridge between surgery and function. It is where a repaired hand becomes a working hand. Without it, even the most remarkable surgical effort risks being wasted. With it, the miracle of surgery is completed.

Closing Reflection

Our hands are not just tools but our bridge to life, creativity, and connection. On Hand Surgery Day, let us protect them, prevent injuries, and value timely expert care. We salute the surgeons who restore movement, dignity, and hope- one hand, one life at a time. Safe hands are a personal asset, a community responsibility, and a national commitment, preserving human dignity, resilience, and the power to heal, build, and love.

P Umar Farooq Baba, Consultant, Department of Plastic Surgery, SKIMS, Soura, Srinagar.