Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the ASSH Children's Choir singing America the Beautiful. America, America, God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. And now, please welcome the InterOCI Ensemble for a special video performance of Handel's Air, followed by live performances of Rachmaninoff's Adagio and Handel's Hornpipe. And now, please join me in welcoming the InterOCI Ensemble for a special video performance of Handel's Adagio and Handel's Hornpipe. And now, please join me in welcoming the InterOCI Ensemble for a special video performance of Handel's Air. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking the Inter-RCI Ensemble. They are members of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. I am so grateful and touched by your performance. They are Rovita McBeth from Philadelphia, playing the violin. Candice Tuanis from Sugarland, playing the piano. Robert Markinson from San Francisco, playing the clarinet. Kevin Little from Cincinnati, playing the trombone. And Ellen Bishop from Rochester, Minnesota, playing the oboe. But he's not here today because he's competing in some tournament somewhere else. The final musical score is special to me. An iconic song from Taiwan, where I was born. Green Island Serenade. In celebration of Formosa, an enchanting place the Portuguese called the beautiful island. Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for our National Anthem. O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the President of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, Dr. Kevin Cheung. It is an honor to welcome you to the 76th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, a truly historic event as the first ever hybrid ASSH meeting. After two years of virtual education, it is exciting that so many of us are in San Francisco. I cannot wait to reconnect with you over the next few days. We also have many of our friends around the globe watching the live stream from home right now. To our online attendees, welcome. It is amazing that in today's modern world, we can learn together despite being thousands of miles away from each other. Thank you to this year's program chairs, John Fowler and Amy Moore, who have built an exceptional program that you can enjoy over the next year. It is going to be a wonderful meeting for everyone and at home. I would like to begin by introducing the members of the 2021 ASSH Council and acknowledging the many hours of exceptional volunteer work. Please hold your applause while the council members stand and face the audience as I introduce them. Jeff Greenberg, President-elect. Jennifer Wolf, Vice President. Bobby Chabra, Treasurer. Marty Boyer, Immediate Past President. Our ASSH Division Directors, Warren Hammert, Education. Steve McCollum, Practice. Tamara Rosenthal, Research. Don Lalonde, Outreach and International. Our Council Members-at-Large, Ryan Calfee. Dawn Laporte. Peter Murray. Dan Osei, Executive Vice President and CEO, Mark Anderson. And President of the American Foundation for Surgery Ahead, John Seiler. Each of these individuals has given countless hours away from practice and family to advance our organization and field. Please join me in showing our appreciation for their dedication to our mission. Applause Thank you so much. As many of you know, building strong relationships with our international colleagues has always been important to me personally. Hand surgery is truly a collaborative specialty and we learn so much from our counterparts around the world. This year, it was difficult for our international attendees to travel to the United States for this meeting, but I still believe our relationship is as strong as ever. On behalf of all my American colleagues, I extend a warm welcome to our international guests, those who are able to join us in San Francisco and those who are watching home right now. Let's give them a round of applause. Applause It is my pleasure to welcome both our international guest societies this year, the British Society for Surgery Ahead and the Indian Society for Surgery Ahead. I'm grateful for your friendship. I am sorry that our guest nation colleagues cannot attend our meeting, but I welcome to the stage Jennifer Wolf, who will accept a special gift on behalf of the Indian Society, and Jeff Greenberg, who will accept on behalf of the British Society. Applause I would like to take a moment to thank our corporate partners for supporting our meeting. They have stuck with us for what has been an unprecedented year. We are especially appreciative of exhibitors who have joined us for 20 years or more. Their commitment to hand society and the foundation make many of our programs possible, including this meeting. Now we'll hear from our 2021 Annual Meeting Program Chairs, Drs. Fowler and Moore, who have adapted beautifully to planning our first hybrid meeting that paid unmissed attention to creating a program that will serve our online and in-person attendees. I thank them for their leadership. John and Amy, please take a stage to say a few words about your meeting. Good afternoon, and it's exciting to be here finally, and John and I are honored to be your Program Chairs. What a crazy, strange year it has been, maybe even 18 months, and almost two years, actually. We would never have known how this pandemic would affect us personally and professionally, but it has. In the U.S., we also dealt with some systemic racism, social unrest, and tests of democracy. We thought we were through it until we hit surge number two and then surge number three. But in this darkness, there are many bright stars, and that's that although we were isolated, we were in this together. In getting through this tough time, we learned a lot about ourselves. We were able to get connect with friends via new ways with Zoom happy hours. We got time with our families, right? Some of us took new hobbies, and then the talents that we may have neglected before, we were able to focus upon. So there were many bright lights, and when I look out at all of you today, and to those who are joining us, this is another super bright light to be at the 76th Annual ASSH Annual Meeting. It's such an honor to be here, and I'm so glad it's in person. As you can see, we had record number of submissions for all of the ICLs, abstracts, and symposia, and I know Amy and I both sincerely think that shows the interest of the membership and how much people really wanted to get back to some semblance of normal. But let's be honest, there was a lot of challenges, not just in our personal lives and our practices and careers, but in meeting development too. I showed that there were so many applications and proposals that we didn't have enough space, and we were constantly cutting the program down to make this work. It was challenging to build a virtual, hybrid, and in-person meeting all at the same time, and I want to thank Dr. Chung for his wisdom and the ASSH staff for having the foresight to be able to plan that and make this a reality. And then COVID-19, as Amy said, has really caused a lot of restrictions on travel. As Dr. Chung mentioned, our international members could not attend, and then even domestically, we've had a lot of speakers that have to back out last minute because they couldn't travel. But there's a lot of highlights too. I think that that hybrid meeting, as Dr. Chung mentioned, is unique. I think the ASSH staff maybe not wanted to do it again, but it is a unique thing, and I think it's very valuable. Diversity, equity, and inclusion was one of our main focuses when making the program, and we have the largest number of female surgeons in the program in our history. I hope you enjoy the interossei ensemble. It's amazing. Most days, I'm just lucky enough to be an average hand surgeon. They can go and do that and be so talented, so I thought that was great. And I hope you enjoy the children's choir too. As Amy mentioned, the focus on family, and we wanted to try to lift our kids up as well. So now we bring you the program, this hybrid program, and we've been excited to see the packed houses up there with the residents and fellows. And over the next two days, there's lots of education and lots of hand surgery to discuss. We also want to thank our international societies, our guest societies that can't be here, but have contributed greatly to the program, and you will see this with their pre-recorded talks. That's the British Society of Surgery of the Hand and the Indian Society of Surgery of the Hand. I'd also like to draw your attention to the great keynote addresses from our esteemed colleagues. These will be truly wonderful and enlightening in many ways. Amy, I want to give a huge thank to our annual meeting program committee members. Without their tireless work reviewing all those abstracts and giving us such great ICL and symposia ideas, this meeting could not be possible. I want to congratulate and thank Paige Fox and Stephen Haas, anyone that was here yesterday for the residents and fellows conference. It was literally a packed house, standing room only, and we got such wonderful feedback about how valuable that was for the residents and fellows. And I want to thank all of our moderators, speakers, and presenters. They're the ones who really make this meeting happen. We want to thank the SSH staff and leadership. Behind the scenes, they do all the hard work, and Amy and I get a lot of the credit, so thank you so much. And to our right-hand woman, Angie Legaspi. Angie, thank you so much. We literally could not have done this without you. And last but not least, we want to thank Dr. Kevin Chung, who gave us the opportunity, and under his leadership, to grow. So thank you to the 75th president of the SSH, Dr. Chung. I am so proud of both of them and also the committee to come up with a program like this Oh, my goodness is so difficult, but they have generated such a beautiful program And thank you so much for being with us both virtually and in San Francisco Next I'd like to welcome I'd like to welcome dr. Nash name the president of the American Association for hand surgery one of our close partners in many endeavors the hand association and hand society have Collaborated for many years to achieve our mission and our partnership remains strong Please welcome. Dr. Nam to share update on the hand association I Thank you president Chang and congratulations for a fantastic meeting and congratulations the program chairs as well It's really a great honor for me to talk to you this afternoon representing your younger sister organization the American Association for hand surgery and Surprisingly your baby sister is more than 50 years old now, so we're getting older but the amazing thing what binds us together is the camaraderie and the friendship and the mutual respect and We as two organizations we share the same vision Which is essentially to promote hand surgery and hand surgery education not only domestically, but also internationally That's why there is a collaboration between the two organizations in the specialty day for the annual AOS meeting the two organizations submitted a successful bid to get the IFS SH meeting of 2025 to be in the u.s And also some international reach programs that combination between the effort of the two organizations AHS also has some other international reach reach programs reach out programs including the Vargas Award the International reverse surgery and therapy fellowships and some other webinars and so forth directed towards the international audience I Would like to invite you to our annual meeting which will be in Carlsbad, California in January of 2021 there's what you too, I'm sorry and The the program is going to be a robust program in the social level and also scientific level Chaired by two of the most wonderful and capable young hand surgeons. Dr. Julie Adams on dr. Marker Kent and I appreciate their effort We're gonna have interesting guest speakers starting with my friend and mentor Dr. Scott Cousin who bridges the two organizations because he's the past president of both organizations The award-winning author Ram is now who just related to me my our past president Robert Russell And then there is a special guest the gentleman who when was a child. He was born with congenital differences in his legs his feet and his hands and He was told our parents were told that he would never be able to use his hands This is his hands now short stubby fingers very stiff. He cannot make a fist But when he uses his hands, it's just amazing It's the internationally renowned concert pianist while Farouk was specialized in Rachmaninoff piano concertos He will inspire us with his story He will delight us with his music and it's gonna be a joyful program on different levels I would welcome you all of you to Carlsbad Hopefully next year in January and thank you so much and congratulations. Mr. President. Thank you Thank you, Dr. Nam. Now we turn to our very own foundation. An organization that has grown into a true giant in the hand surgery community. Its research, education, and outreach programs have contributed to real and meaningful change in our field. I would like to welcome the chair of the American Foundation for Surgery at Hand, Dr. Scott Kozen, to share a report on the foundation's progress. Dr. Kozen. Good afternoon and welcome, welcome, and welcome. I have to echo some of the words of Amy and John. It feels so good to be back up here. A little nerve-wracking because I haven't been up here in a long time, but it feels so good. And it's just wonderful to be together and it just shows how strong we are as a community. And I'm going to give the foundation report as chair, and John Seiler, who you saw earlier, is the president. So first and foremost, we need to thank the board. Bill Seitz, John Seiler, Ed Diao, Bobby Chabra, Marty Boyer, Kevin Chung, Jeff Greenberg, Tamara Rosenthal, Donna Laund, Amy Loud, Peter Weiss, Glenn Gaston, Mira Desai, and Orissa Britton. And it's been a tough year for all of us and they've worked very hard to make the foundation stronger. And your foundation is as strong as it's ever been in terms of monies, resources, dedication, and devotion to its members. I do want to take a second, though, and spend an extra special thanks to my friend and confidant, John Seiler. John has led the foundation as the president for two terms, which is four years. He has been remarkable as a person and a friend, and our friendship spans probably 30 years now. And for those that don't know, John has had humongous accomplishments with the foundation. He's just a really good person. He's a good person, he's a good family man, he's a good father, he's a good husband, he's everything you want to be in life. One of the things that John started for the foundation is domestic outreach, and believe it or not, for the new members there, we didn't know how to do domestic outreach. We did international outreach first, and then John Seiler had an epiphany one day, and I'll share with you what happened. There really is a big need in almost every community. There are people that are underinsured or uninsured, that have significant medical conditions that require surgical treatment, and so we're trying to provide some of those procedures so that patients can get the care that they need in a timely manner so they can remain productive members of their community. When you work with people that are really in need, and you know that you can maybe impact that need and help them get better, it's very rewarding. One day, Dr. Seiler said to me, I've got this idea that might be crazy, but what would you think if we tried to do something here? And that was the beginning of domestic outreach. Now, John's had other huge accomplishments that led to the foundation. He's helped with the Solutions Center, and I will tell you, this morning at 9 o'clock, the Solutions Center was packed, packed with people because they were desiring hand surgery and desiring camaraderie. John's worked on the meeting app. He mentioned the charity navigating rating at the membership meeting. We're the highest rating, four out of four, and John's just an out-of-the-box thinker, and even though he's stepping down as president, he will still be used within the foundation, so I think that's very, very important. I'm going to talk a little bit about the pillars, research, education, and outreach. This is the spending for 2021. You can see research is about a half million, education, 100,000, and outreach is down to about 10,000. Obviously, we've been able to do domestic or international outreach, so the spending has diminished. Highlights, because that's what we always want to talk about. Currently, the foundation is on track to award almost $800,000 in grant and award funding, $800,000, and these monies will lead to further monies with extramural funding, so it's not just the $800,000. It's the extramural funding that's gleaned. In addition, from an educational standpoint, we funded 146 out of the 147 scholarships, so 99%, and there's a lot of young members here and young residents and fellows that were recipients of this money, so we welcome you to our society. From an outreach standpoint, it's been a rough year, rough two years, as Amy said, but we're looking to resume outreach missions in 2022, and hopefully when I stand up here next year in front of all of you and everybody here, we'll be talking more about outreach. I'm super lucky to talk about this next topic. So David Lichtman, who has been president of your society and has been chair of the foundation, gave you a huge donation, an endowed award called the Admiral Lichtman Award, and him and Frankie have given a lump sum of money so that the money will be used in perpetuity, and the recipient will be an active military person who provides the best paper at our given meeting. I can't say enough about how much this means. John Seiler helped navigate the waters, but it's been really, really good, so Admiral, I can't really see you, but bravo, Zulu. And last, and certainly not least, everyone needs to understand that the foundation is your foundation, and we started this short video clip where people share their experience with the foundation. I urge each and every one of you to get involved in the society. It's very gratifying. And get involved in the foundation. It's fulfilling. You know your dollars are going exactly where you want them to go. Every dollar counts, and as you progress through your career, the ability to give back will go up. Giving is important, and actually giving makes you feel better. One of the key things about the foundation is that it's really the only organization that I know of that's dedicated to hand surgery as our specialty. And so to be able to support it, that's really a very direct way to be able to give back something to our specialty. I think that supporting the foundation supports all the missions of the Hand Society. There are funds that fund handy. There are funds that fund touching hands. So giving to those funds makes me feel like I'm impacting the future of the Hand Society, and so that's why I give. If you have a passion for something, and you care about it, then deciding to give to that organization is a very easy decision to make. Every dollar counts, and thank you for your time this afternoon. Thank you, Dr. Cozen. We're proud of what the foundation was able to accomplish in the past year during such an unusual time. Next, we have a special invitation from the British Society for Surgery of the Hand, which is co-hosting the 2022 International Hand Surgery Meeting in London. Good afternoon. I'm David Turing, and I'm chair of the organizing committee for the IFSSH meeting in London next year. Unfortunately, we're not allowed into the U.S. from the U.K. at the moment, and so I'm here with you virtually. The venue is in the Excel Centre, situated in the Docklands area of East London. It was one of the venues used for the London Olympics, and so the area has fantastic infrastructure. Accommodation, restaurants, and bars in the vicinity are plentiful, and it will be less expensive than in central London. If you prefer to stay in central London, then transport options are good with the Docklands Light Railway and an underground tube connection. And if you want to take a scenic route in, there are riverboats departing from all major London piers every 20 minutes. The gala dinner is in the old Billingsgate Market, with capacity for 1,800. As the Congress is being held for a consecutive time in Europe, this will be a combined meeting with FESH, and so it's likely to be a big meeting. I'm just going to play you a short trailer. And so thank you. Abstract submission is now open. Registration opens imminently. And see you next year. Congratulations to our British colleagues, our good friends, British Society for Surgery at Hand, that many of you are watching us from afar. Congratulations. I would like to congratulate this year's award winners Congratulations to you all. because of dedications of members like you, that our specialty has grown into what it is today. To commemorate this landmark, we have created 🎵 Thank you for watching! Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dr. Jeff Greenberg, President-elect of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. It's my pleasure to introduce Dr. Kevin Chee Chung, the 75th President of our American Society for Surgery of the Hand. The world was introduced to Dr. Chung in 1963. Dr. Chung's early childhood and upbringing is one that is probably quite different from most of us and speaks volumes to his ultimate drive and success. Dr. Chung was born on a small island of Taiwan, where he lived until he was seven years old. His family relocated to Indonesia, but due to cultural reasons, moved to Singapore where Kevin lived until he was 15 years old. His father, a sailor, desiring the best educational opportunities for Kevin and his younger brother, relocated to America, choosing Atlanta as it matched the latitude of their previous place of residence. Kevin's younger brother is a general surgeon in Lake Charles, Louisiana. It is not difficult to understand the boy's attraction to surgery as his parents ran a small alteration store in Atlanta. Kevin's youth while not studying or studying sports was spent working in the alteration shop sewing pants and skirts. He jokingly attributes his hernioraphy skills to the many knots that he tied while working in the shop. Kevin completed his undergraduate and medical school training at Emory University. He obtained his general surgery training from the University of Texas He has been on the faculty at the University of Michigan since his fellowship, and at the University of Michigan Medical School, he serves as the Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs in charge of tenure and promotions, and as the Associate Director for Global Reach, the global health program of the medical school. Dr. Chung is Chief of Hand Surgery for Michigan Medicine and Director of the Comprehensive Hand Center. Dr. Chung's academic accolades speak to who he is. He was a Director of the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery, and has served as the Treasurer Secretary for the American Board of Plastic Surgery. He was the past Vice President of Research and current Trustee for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. He was the past President of the Plastic Surgery Foundation. He was past Chairman of the A.O. North America Hand Education. Grab and Smith's Plastic Surgery, and will be assuming the role as Editor-in-Chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. 70 book chapters and 29 textbooks. He has over 20 years of continuous NIH funding. Dr. Chung was the first recipient of the Weiland Medal. He was the 2011 Researcher of the Year for the American Association of Plastic Surgeons. In 2008, he received the Dean's Award from the University of Michigan Medical School for Clinical and Health Services Research. In 2016, he again received the Dean's Award for the Outstanding Clinician, recognizing the exemplary performance of a practicing physician. In 2020, he was recognized by from the American College of Surgeons, recognizing an outstanding doctor of medical science in the United States. He has been a dedicated volunteer for the ASSH, serving on a number of committees, serving on council. He has influenced over 100 trainees and teaches with the desire to share everything he has learned with his trainees with the intention of making them better than he is. The impact that he has had on his young trainees is exemplified by representative comments from his former fellows. He drives inquiry by challenging them after every case. He drives productivity by demanding that they contribute to our literature. He pushes them hard so they are better at the end of their fellowship. He instills a healthy level of fear by driving them to be productive, and he sets an example by working hard and efficiently, desirable traits for any surgeon leader. If I was asked to describe Dr. Chung, I would use the words dedicated, driven, and devoted. Well, that's the movie Conan the Barbarian. But thank you so much, Dr. Greenberg, and all of you. It's absolutely remarkable to see you here today. Do aliens and extraterrestrial beings exist? Statistically speaking, considering the vastness of the universe, other intelligent beings ought to exist somewhere in the universe. Yet following the classic Fermi's paradox, we refute the existence of aliens. What is the paradox? It is a self-contradictory statement that seems absurd when carefully investigated, but is found to be true. We are now living in the classic paradox and pandemic of unimaginable misery, which despite the hardship, has a silver lining. Today, I want to explore the lessons of the past through the concepts of paradox and how this will shape our vision for the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. It has been two years since we have been with each other at our annual gathering. I am so grateful to see all of you in person and virtually. The past two years seems like a horrendous dream or a classic paradox. To understand the roots At one time, Europeans believed that the swans are only white. In fact, they believed more in the existence of unicorns rather than a swan that is black, until a black swan was discovered in Australia. This phenomenon led to the idea of the paradox of the black swan, an event that is so rare it is seemingly unfathomable. that a pandemic is on the horizon, but with a little. On the one hand, we all lived through our first pandemic, experienced times of increased national tension and global destruction that we'd never seen before. However, there's a bright side to this in that we got to spend more time with the family, maybe pick up a new hobby, or finally catch up on our reading list. But the story has not yet reached a finale. In most stories, there is a hero, a villain, a sidekick who helped the hero along the journey. A classic example of this is Star Wars, a story that all of us are familiar with. In this story, the hero, Luke Skywalker, aims to defeat the villain, Darth Vader. He needs help along the way, and he finds this from various friends, families, and allies, such as Obi-Wan Kenobi. But this pandemic is reality and not a movie script. How is this story going to end for us? How is it gonna play out for us? It is easy to place blame on the virus, the villain, but who is the real villain? I would argue we are the villains because we, human beings around the world, ignore all the signs of this pandemic and took minimal action to curb it, and worse yet, disregard its existence. We cannot blame the black swan for this unanticipated rare event. But who are the heroes? Here lies the paradox. We are also the heroes, the brave healthcare workers around the globe who died caring for the sick. These heroes are our colleagues who made the ultimate sacrifice. We physicians are the heroes of this story. We achieved the most remarkable development of the vaccine in record time using novel mRNA technology. And it's humbling to witness the generosity of heroes among us, you, who contributed to food banks and gave monetary assistance for those in need. In any great story, there are also helpers. And who are the helpers? What about FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Agency, who made an impressive vaccination effort around the country? They were vilified during the Katrina hurricane. My family received our vaccine at the Ford Football Stadium in Detroit. We are confident that they are professional. A paradox is in play here. We are also the helpers, recognizing there is no us versus them in the divided world, but us human beings who are the only ones who can get us out of this sorrow by collaborating amongst people, amongst nations, and establish the much-needed trust to overcome this pandemic. We need to have the resolve to anticipate the next disaster that will surely come again by helping and caring for each other. So the question now becomes, how can we rise successfully from the depth of our current paradox? How should we deal with the paradox of the current pandemic? What good can come from it? crisis. Many of these witty quotes can be traced to various people, but it's a safe bet that's coming from a brush-sharp British One way that we can recover is to look to history for lessons. One lesson known story is the siege of Leningrad. This is a unique paradox of protecting the future generation by sacrificing the current population. The city of Leningrad now called St. Petersburg underwent where the main food source was a daily ration of 125 grams of bread a day. For context, one slice of bread is 38 grams, so 3.3 slices of bread per day. They mixed it with sawdust to keep people full. This siege led to the death of 1.5 million people, a number that's hard to imagine. The paradox of the situation is that just down the road where people were receiving the sawdust bread is enough food to feed the whole population of Leningrad for the duration Not many have. Nikolai Vavilov, the person in charge of this institute during World War II, kept the world's largest collection of plant seeds, largely secret from the starving population. The intent of this institute is to safeguard the biodiversity of the earth to weather future calamities. It has survived many attempts to disband this institute and currently contain 345,000 variety seeds from around the globe. Some of them were extinct. Did the scientists make the right decision? Several members of the scientific team died protecting the seed repository, not to mention the millions. Or both? The paradox is this, the scientists are the heroes who sacrifice their lives for future generations, but they're also the villains who permitted over 1.5 million people. to protect the seeds, prevent the starvation of future populations. This institute is still standing and today is carrying out its goal of protecting biodiversity. For example, a particular wheat seed, wheat species from Ethiopia became extinct during the civil war in the 1970s. The Ethiopian government asked the institute for the extinct wheat seeds, which were subsequently reintroduced back to Ethiopia and now provide a much-needed food source for the population. We, as species, have the opportunity to choose if we want to be heroes, or the helpers, or the villains. the famine, and how can we be certain this pandemic is Oh, and don't stalk their parents. The Admiral, along with many other members of the Navy, were captured and held hostage for prisoner of war for 8 years. 8 years of suffering from starvation and daily torture. The Admiral survived this ordeal with his mental fortitude intact, yet many of his fellow prisoners died. Admiral Stockdale is remembered for maintaining hope despite being held as a prisoner, not knowing when he will be released. Some of his powerful quotes from this paradox of tragedy and prisoner of triumph, the Stockdale Paradox. Quote, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also I would prevail in the end and turn this experience into the defining event of my life, which in retrospect I will not trade. But you must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end. Faith you can never afford to lose with the discipline to confront the most brutal fact of your current reality, whatever that may be. Optimists, the ones who will say, we are going to be. We are smack in the midst of the Stockdale Paradox. How many times have we heard our kids or loved ones or news anchors say in one month COVID will go away, then six months, then one year? Do not confuse optimism with the resolve to overcome our current challenges. Yet, yes, we must have hope because without hope we would not have the will to survive this pandemic. But we must face the reality of this enormous obstacle. We have to do what we can to protect ourselves and each other, be kind to our fellow people, and help each other recover together. America is the most generous nation in the world with the largest contribution of foreign aids. We need to share our vaccine to the world. We have bought and donated 500 million doses of vaccine for the world and most of these vaccines have been delivered, but more needs to be done by all countries to the means to do so. 90 percent of people from 67 low-income countries still stand little chance of getting vaccinated against COVID in 2021. This pandemic has illuminated growth inequality among nations. Rich countries, which has 14 percent of population, have bought up over 50 percent They blame and find a villain for it. We do. You just saw the magnificent 75th anniversary video of a great society, the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. In 1939, Dr. Norman Kirk, Surgeon General, promoted Dr. Sturdy Brunel from here in San Francisco to teach hand surgery around America. The iconic quote of our specialty, it falls to a few men to originate a surgical specialty. And these few men started the American Society for Surgery of the Hand in Chicago over 75 years ago that shaped who we are and who we aspire to be. From the tragedy of World War II to the COVID pandemic, the genesis of the American Society of Surgery of the Hand resonated in America and the world through a touching hands project by caring for By collaborating with one another, we can be heroes and helpers on our way to achieve many great events. for dream, mung, a word I'd like to share with you. I never dreamed I would be on a podium with you today. My parents brought my brother and me to the shores of America. in Atlanta, next to North Lake Mall, one stitch. The countless skirts I sewed not only honed my skills for a surgery career but gave me time to think about how I could pursue a career that can help others. In fact, during the first few weeks when I was a surgery intern at San Antonio, my attendant would ask, where did you learn to sew so well and so fast? After seeing me sew, they would also say, what's wrong with you, Kevin? Is it that seamless knot you're tying? We do not do that fancy knot in surgery. As Van Gogh elegantly stated, I dream my painting, then I paint my dream. Our immigrant families of a great nation dreamt to better the children's lives as well. commitment, and compassion, which mirrors my initial KCC. We will contribute knowledge for the betterment of our patients and trainees. We will commit to excellence in our personal and professional lives, and we will act with compassion to speak for those without a voice and advocate for those without means. He has the word dream, mung, in the idiom. When I first read this, I wondered what Chinese philosopher from what dynasty this saying comes from. This is not from any ancient scholar, but from America. A classic translation for the revered American actor. As generations have weathered overwhelming challenges, it is up to our generation to create a better world for the next generation. Ladies and gentlemen, we're faced with a paradox of enormous proportion, but with courage, conviction, and compassion, we shall prevail. I am grateful and emotional to see you all in the audience, to speak to you while watching America and around the globe. This is a picture of our current council, who I have the privilege to work with to serve our membership and specialty. We are in a proud, regal outfit. We value inclusion. Our council represents the diversity of our society, a value we are committed to. This is a mosaic of our current and future members. Look for the pictures of you and your friends. We come from all walks of life, all ethnicities, all age groups, and from all corners of the world. Our founders said to us, it falls to a few men to originate a surgical specialty. Today, it falls on all of us. Thank you.

76th Annual Meeting

American Society for Surgery of the Hand

ASSH

Children's Choir

Dr. Kevin Cheung

international collaboration

COVID-19 pandemic

hand surgery

heroes

helpers

future