[Patient monitoring strategy in a hand surgery university center labeled FESUM-Integration of postgraduate students: A prospective study].

Abstract

Introduction: Federation of Hand Emergency Services (FESUM) is a European network of hand emergency centers (called SOS hand centers) in France, Belgium and Luxembourg. The FESUM network includes 64 SOS Hand centers in France. In our university hospital, the FESUM-certified SOS hand has been part of the plastic surgery department since 2001. It has included, since 2016, postgraduate students ("residents") training in hand surgery who participate independently in the patient follow-up. The objective of this study was to analyze the characteristics of this population of patients with hand injuries and their satisfaction with this mode of follow-up. The secondary objective was to study the characteristics of the patient population treated by our center.

Material and method: We conducted a study on the follow-up of patients undergoing emergency hand surgery, prospective, single-center, declarative, anonymized, between May and October 2021 at the SOS main center of our university hospital at the "SOS Main" intern consultation. The demographic data, the main characteristics of the pathology, the elements of initial care and follow-up of the patients as well as their satisfaction were analyzed, as well as the satisfaction of the interns.

Results: We included 323 patients. The population of patients treated generally corresponded to a young man, manual worker, who was initially treated in an outpatient department or in an SOS Hand consultation. The lesions most often represented were fractures (24%), tendon wounds (18%) and wounds without damage to noble tissues (16%). Follow-up consultations took place mainly 15days after the emergency intervention, lasted on average 10minutes and did not present excessive delays. Patient (91.2%) and post-graduate student (87.2%) satisfaction was high. However, postoperative physiotherapy follow-up was insufficient, as was self-rehabilitation.

Conclusion: The integration of post-graduate student in a university plastic surgery department into the care of SOS Hand patients seems beneficial for all those involved, and for their training. The characteristics of the follow-up consultations by the intern in autonomous supervision corresponded to the high quality standards of the FESUM. The patients showed a high satisfaction rate. Better valorization of this consultation in "office surgery" should be considered.