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.

Piotr Czarnecki - Course co-chair
Poznan, Poland

Piotr Czarnecki, MD, PhD after serving as member in the FESSH HTC Committee currently he is the chair of the FESSH Congress Committee. He is working in Traumatology, Orthopaedics and Hand Surgery Department at Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poland, specialized in orthopaedics and trauma surgery. Dr Czarnecki is past President of Polish Society for Surgery of the Hand and former chief of Hand Surgery Section at Polish Orthopaedics and Traumatology Society, currently FESSH National Delegate. He is also a member of FESSH Examination Committee and passed his exam in 2010 as the best candidate. His main field of research and clinical practice is secondary post-traumatic reconstruction, congenital deformities, degenerative disorders and nerve surgery. Since many years he is devoted to improve training and scientific exchange of Polish and Eastern Europe hand surgeons organizing numerous meetings: congresses, courses, cadaver courses, summer schools and symposia. His idea is to teach and learn in a hospitable and friendly atmosphere, combining modern high quality content with socializing activities.

Andrea Atzei
Treviso, Italy

Inga Besmens
Zurich, Switzerland

Inga Besmens is a fellow of both the European Board of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery as well as the European Board of Hand Surgery.
She has a Master's Degree in Reconstructive Microsurgery and is head of hand surgery in the department of plastic surgery and hand surgery at the university hospital Zurich. Her clinical and research interest focus on reconstructive hand surgery, including peripheral nerve surgery as well as outcome research.
In 2017 she co-founded YEHS- Young European Handsurgeons, the young group of the FESSH and soon after became the groups first elected president until 2020. She has been active in organizing conferences and educational course on a national as well as international level.

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.

Mariusz Bonczar
Cracow, Poland

Trained at Jagiellonian Medical University Cracow. He received specialist training in hand surgery at the Christine M. Kleinert Institute Louisville Kentucky under the supervision of Professor Harold Kleinert 1993-1995. He completed a medical doctorate thesis focusing on Kienböck’s disease in 1996 and at the same time successfully passed the European Board of Hand Surgery examination. FESSH examiner 2011-2019. 2017 Chairman of Scientific Committee of FESSH Congress in Budapest/Hungary. 2017-2019 President of the Polish Society for Surgery of the Hand (PTChR). Since 2001 he has been practicing as hand surgeon at a private hospital in Cracow, Poland.

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.

Ewa Bręborowicz
Poznan, Poland

Ewa Bręborowicz has been a physiotherapist at the Traumatology, Orthopedics and Hand Surgery Department, Poznan University of Medical Sciences (Poland) since 2009. She completed her PhD in 2015 and has attended many physiotherapy courses. She is one of the founders of the Polish Association for Hand Therapy which was established in 2019. She is a member of the Polish Society for Physiotherapy and the Polish Society for Surgery of the Hand. She is an author of many papers, oral presentations and has coauthored various clinical handbook. She teaches physiotherapy and medical students as well as specialists courses for postgraduate doctors.

Ilse Degreef
Leuven, Belgium

Ilse Degreef is an orthopedic surgeon specialized in hand surgery, affiliated to Leuven University Hospitals in Leuven where she is full time staff member since 2003, surgeon-in-chief and appointed full professor of orthopedics & hand surgery at Leuven University KUL, Belgium. She is board member and president elect of the Belgian Hand Group (presidency 2022-2024). She has well over 100 peer reviewed publications on hand surgery, authored many book chapters and is a frequently invited speaker on international hand surgery meetings. She is the coordinator of the Belgian Hand Surgery Certificate, which is a National Post-academic Interuniversity Training and examination on hand surgery. Since 2021, she had a national FWO Clinical Grant and is thus appointed 50% academic researcher at Leuven University, with a focus on Dupuytren disease, a translational research subject in which she graduated with PhD in 2009.

Joris Duerinckx -
Genk, Belgium

Joris Duerinckx graduated as an orthopaedic surgeon at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) in 2018. Afterwards, he served as a hand surgery fellow in the C.M. Kleinert Institute in Louisville (KY, USA). He works as an orthopaedic surgeon specialized in hand and wrist in the department of orthopaedic surgery department in ZOL hospital in Genk (Belgium). He is a board member of the Belgian Hand Group. He authored over 45 peer-reviewed articles and wrote several book chapters. In 2021 he successfully defended his doctoral thesis at Hasselt University regarding thumb trapeziometacarpal total joint arthroplasty. Combined with his experience of >1000 trapeziometacarpal implants, he is internationally regarded as an expert on this topic.

Lorenzo Garagnani
London, UK

Lorenzo Garagnani is paediatric and adult Consultant Hand & Wrist Surgeon at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London (UK), where he has been co-founder and first Lead of the OrthoPlastic Hand Unit. He is also Honorary Reader (Senior Associate Professor eq.) at the Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine of King’s College London.

He qualified in Medicine and Surgery obtaining a Master Degree with Distinction and subsequently specialised in Trauma and Orthopaedics in Bologna (Italy) where he trained in the Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute rotation. He completed his sub-specialist training in adult and paediatric hand and wrist surgery in the UK, with a sequence of Fellowships at the Hand Unit/Plastic Surgery Department of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, the Oxford University Hospitals’ Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Department, the Hand Clinic in Windsor, and the Plastic Surgery Department of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.

Lorenzo Garagnani is Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (FRCS) and holds the European Diploma in Hand Surgery as well as a Postgraduate Diploma in Aesthetic & Wellness Medicine and a Postgraduate Certificate in Healthcare Executive Leadership.

His main sub-specialist interests are paediatric and congenital hand surgery and complex wrist surgery. He is author of numerous scientific articles and book chapters and is regular speaker and invited faculty member internationally. Lorenzo has pioneered and popularised globally innovative techniques to reduce surgical morbidity, like for instance the use of a Hyaluronic Acid scaffold as an alternative to skin grafts in congenital syndactyly release. He has also been the first hand surgeon globally to develop and advocate anatomically based, safer techniques and appropriate specialised training for non-surgical hand rejuvenation.

He is a founding member and has been President of the Pediatric Hand International Society of Surgeons (PHISOS) and is the current President of the Italian Medical Society of Great Britain (IMSoGB). He has an interest in medical education and is the Guy’s and St Thomas’ Lead for Undergraduate Medical Education in Orthopaedics, tutor for the British Diploma in Hand Surgery, Director of the Guy’s and St Thomas’ IBRA Upper Limb Fellowship and Training Centre, Advisory Committee Member of the PhD Programme in Surgical Sciences and Innovative Technologies of the University of Bologna, and member of the FESSH Examination Committee.

In 2022, he was awarded the Knighthood of the Order of the Star of Italy (OSI) from the President of Italy for his international surgical career and for the coordination of a task force of volunteer doctors during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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

Leila Harhaus
Berlin, Germany

Prof. Dr. Leila Harhaus is the Chair of the Dpt. for Hand-, Replantation- and Microsurgery BG Klinikum Unfallkrankenhaus Berlin as well as Chair of Hand-, Replantation- and Microsurgery at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin. She studied medicine in Mainz and Freiburg and started her residency at the Department for Trauma Surgery, Orthopedics and Plastic Surgery at University Hospital Göttingen, Germany. After three years, she moved to BG Trauma Center Ludwigshafen, where she obtained her board qualification for plastic surgery and two years later for hand surgery. She passed the European FESSH exam in 2019 as "best candidate" and also completed her studies of health economics. During her one-year microsurgical fellowship at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taipei, Taiwan, she began her intensive work in the field of peripheral nerve surgery, which she has since than continued as her clinical and scientific focus. In 2021 she became chief of the Dpt. for Handsurgery, Peripheral Nervesurgery and Rehabilitation of BG Trauma Center Ludwigshafen and the Chair of the Section Upper Extremity of Heidelberg University. She is leading a large research group working on almost all topics of hand surgery. As a member of numerous societies, she is involved in committee work, leads the guideline work and translational research topics.

Balazs Lenkei
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.

Alex Lluch
Barcelona, Spain

Dr. Alex Lluch is a hand surgeon from Barcelona, Spain. He is the co-director of Institut Kaplan and head of the Hand & Wrist Unit in Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in his hometown. Fascinated by hand surgery since his years of Medical School, he still has the need for learning and sharing knowledge with frequent visits around the world. He has special interest in the treatment of arthrosis and carpal instabilities, reason why he has contributed to create the Barcelona Wrist Biomechanics Study Group.
Àlex joined the Relation Committee of FESSH in 2017, and continued serving as Elected Treasurer in 2020. He is now in his second term as Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee.

Shai Luria
Jerusalem, Israel

Shai Luria is the head of the Hand and Microvascular Surgery Service at the Department of Orthopedics at the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem, Israel. He trained in orthopedics at Hadassah MC and hand surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, USA. Today he is the fellowship director of the Hand and Microvascular Surgery Fellowship at Hadassah, a member of the Hebrew University School of Occupational Therapy Board of Education and manager of the weekly resident teaching program of the Orthopedic Surgery Division, Ein Kerem Campus of the Hadassah MC. Shai specializes in upper extremity trauma reconstruction and the treatment of upper extremity neuromuscular and congenital disorders. His research interests include the study of wrist biomechanics and the epidemiology of hand and upper extremity trauma and is an Associate Professor at the Hebrew University. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Hand Surgery (European Volume). Shai is the past president of the Israeli Society for Surgery of the Hand.

Pawel Reichert
Wroclaw, Poland

Pawel Reichert is the Head of the Department and Clinical Department of Orthopedics, Traumatology, and Hand Surgery at Wroclaw Medical University and Mikulicz-Radecki University Clinical Hospital in Wroclaw, Poland. He obtained his specialization in orthopedics and traumatology in 2008. In 2004, he received his doctoral degree based on a series of monographic studies on brachial plexus injuries. In 2020, he became a professor. Professor Reichert furthered his training in hand surgery through fellowships in Munich and Bochum, where he worked with leading experts in the field. He also holds the EBHS certification. Professor Reichert currently serves as the President of the Polish Society of Hand Surgery. He is actively involved in the AO Foundation, serving as a lecturer and as a the council member of education AOTRAUMA Poland. Additionally, he organizes the AO Hand Course, a cadaver-based educational program. His primary areas of interest include hand trauma, peripheral nerve surgery, and endoprosthetic reconstruction of the CMC joint and wrist.

Nick Riley
Oxford, UK

Nicholas Riley was born in the UK and qualified from St. Barts and the Royal London School of Medicine in 2001. He undertook his early post-graduate training in London, before completing his senior Orthopaedic training in Oxford. He was subsequently awarded the Oxford Hand Surgery Fellowship and obtained the British Diploma in Hand Surgery in 2016. Following visiting fellowships at the Mayo Clinic and the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York he was appointed as a Consultant Hand and Wrist Surgeon in Oxford. He has a tertiary referral hand and wrist surgery practice with a subspecialty interest in complex fracture treatment, scaphoid non-union, complex hand and wrist infection and the management of degenerative change in the hand and wrist.

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.

Pierluigi Tos
Milan, Italy

Pierluigi Tos is Director of the Department of Hand Surgery and Microsurgery of the Orthopaedic Institute Gaetano Pini-CTO in Milan, Italy. Is specialized in both Orthopaedic and Plastic/Reconstructive surgery with a PhD in Neuroscience. He has a special interest in microsurgery and research on nerve regeneration and education. Former president of the Italian Society for Microsurgery and actual President of the European Federation for Microsurgery is in charge for the Education committee of these societies. He has been chair of the Hand Trauma Committee and council member of FESSH from 2017 to 2023, now responsible for the Micro&Hand subgroup inside the FESSH. He is scientifically responsible for the microsurgery advanced diploma of the Italian Society for Microsurgery (SIM) and Surgery of the Hand (SICM). He has 132 publications in Medline, 4 books, 40 book chapters. Experimental research area: nerve repair and regeneration, teaching methodology, microsurgery. President of the Italian Group of Microsurgery and Limbs Reconstruction of the Italian Society of Orthopaedics, Contract Professor of the University of Milan School of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, European Delegate for the Italian Society for Microsurgery at the EFSM President of the Italian Editorial Committee of the Italian Society for Hand Surgery, Deputy Director and Scientific Board of the Italian Journal of Hand Surgery (Rivista Italiana di Chirurgia della Mano) - the official journal of SICM (Italian Society for Surgery of the Hand), former President of the Education Committee of Italian Society for Surgery of the Hand.

Ireneusz Walaszek
Szczecin, Poland

Ireneusz Walaszek MD is a senior hand consultant in Orthopaedic Department and Paediatric Hand Department at the Pomeranian University Hospital. He is the Delegate IFFSH of the Polish Society for Surgery of the Hand. Examiner in the FESSH Examination Committee. He graduated from Pomeranian Medical University 1998. He completed an international fellowship in hand surgery in Kleinert Institute for Hand Surgery 2001, Department of Plastic Surgery, Handsurgery and Microsurgery in Ganga Hospital in India 2002. He completed an MD thesis on finger replantation by Pomeranian University in 2003. He received the European Board Hand Surgery Examination Diploma in 2003. All time involved in education and supervision of younger fellows during their medical work, training students and younger fellow medical doctors in the field of microsurgery, hand surgery in Pomeranian University. His interest is in both adult and paediatric hand surgery, special interests in microsurgical techniques, wrist arthroscopy, pediatric hand both congenital and injuries and use of new technologies in hand surgery (3D visualizations, 3D printing)

Emily West
Bristol, UK

Emily West is a Consultant Plastic and Hand Surgeon working at Southmead Hospital, Bristol and Bristol Royal Hospital for Children.
Following undergraduate medicine in Cambridge and Oxford and surgical training in London, her Plastics training was in the Oxfordshire region. She completed an interface orthopaedic Hand fellowship in Norwich and a microsurgery fellowship in Bristol, gaining the European Diploma in Hand Surgery in 2015, and was appointed as Consultant in 2015.
She is Clinical lead for Hand and Children’s Plastic Surgery in Bristol and undertakes a broad range of hand and upper limb surgery, however her main interests are upper limb trauma/ soft tissue reconstruction, Children’s Hand surgery and management of nerve injuries.
She is passionate about education, and has been faculty for the AO Hand trauma course for 10 years, teaches on the BSSH instructional courses, multiple regional and local courses and is involved in PULPe. She is an examiner for the FESSH exam, and delighted to be part of this FESSH course.