Hand in Hand – The Activity of a Soft Tissue Trauma Clinic in a Tertiary Referral Centre and its Association with Economic Prosperity

摘要

Recent attention on reconfiguration of trauma services nationally has brought to the fore the importance of soft tissue injury management and the infrastructure of plastic surgical services nationwide. As Ireland’s economy emerges from recession and our workforce witnesses increasing opportunities in manual labour and construction sectors, we anticipate an ongoing need to provide tertiary services for soft tissue trauma. An adult soft tissue trauma clinic was established at our institution in 1999. We analysed recent activity at the clinic and compared our findings with three discrete 6-month periods in 2000-2001, 2002-2003 & 2006-2007¹. We aimed to correlate clinic activity with economic events in Ireland to assess if employment levels and prevalence of manual labour are indicative of levels of soft tissue trauma seen at a tertiary centre, and in particular hand trauma.