Hand surgery at Duke dates to 1932, when Deryl Hart came to Duke from Johns Hopkins as the first Chairman of the Department of Surgery. Dr. Hart was a founding member of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH).

Dr. Hart wrote articles for the Lewis Practice of Surgery on hand infections and acute tendon injuries. Additional faculty involved in hand surgery in the 1940s included orthopaedic surgeon Lenox Baker and Barnes Woodhall, Chair of Neurosurgery.

In 1950 J. Leonard Goldner joined the Duke Orthopaedics faculty. Working with Dr. Hart, Dr. Baker, and Dr. Woodhall, Dr. Goldner focused on complex hand problems and received referrals from throughout North Carolina. By 1953, the Duke Orthopaedic Hand Service performed about 125 hand operations.

In 1967, the Duke Replantation Services was organized in cooperation with Orthopaedics, General Surgery, and Plastic Surgery.

The first Hand Fellow was appointed in 1968. Since that time, we have trained 149 fellows, who are leaders in the field and practice internationally. 

The Division of Combined Hand Surgery was created in 2017 to further our history of leading the way in treatment of complex hand problems.