In this Leveling Up episode of the PRS Global Open Deep Cuts podcast, Dr. James Higgins discusses his involvement in the development of the medial femoral trochlear flap, how to develop and perfect a new surgical procedure, how he has gone about turning the MFT flap into an outpatient procedure, the difficulty of using computer-aided design in scaphoid reconstruction, the importance of rigorous assessment of outcomes to verify that new procedures are actually effective, why he likes end-to-side anastomoses, the use of doppler for flap perforator mapping, using angiography for chronic vaso-occlusive disease, how to adjust when a surgery isn't going well or a flap fails, and the importance of work-life balance.

Dr. James Higgins is the Chief of Hand Surgery and the Hand Fellowship Program Director at the Curtis National Hand Center at MedStar Union Memorial Hospital, and the site director for the Walter Reed Hand Surgery Fellowship training program, in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a member of multiple national committees for the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, American Society for Reconstructive microsurgery, American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Board of Plastic Surgery. He was a recipient of ASRM's Godina Fellowship in 2010 and was the Sterling Bunnell Traveling Fellow for ASSH in 2013 - one of only three surgeons to have ever received both accolades.

Read a classic PRS Global Open article by Dr. Higgins and co-author, Victor Wong- "Medial Femoral Condyle Flap:" https://bit.ly/GOXDC_Higgins

Your host, Dr. Puru Nagarkar, is a board-certified plastic and hand surgeon, and Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

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