"My mission has been, and always is to create educational synergy and to expose great technology that allows minimally invasive procedure, accelerates recovery, prevents some surgical procedures, and shortens post-surgical rehabilitation."

Dr. Alejandro Badia

Transforming Athlete Care: Dr. Badia's Renowned Expertise in Hand and Upper Limb Surgery Sets a New Standard

“I make myself very available to my colleagues, not only here in The Bahamas but around the Caribbean. I see a lot of patients from Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago. So, what we do through my website, I’ll have a lot of colleagues send me an x-ray and say ‘What are your thoughts on this?’

Badia also mentioned that distal-radius (broken wrist) is one of the most common adult fracture that would need surgery.

“That’s an extremely common fracture. You see it a lot in older patients because of osteoporosis and you see it in athletes from a high-energy injury such as a fall. And even in labor, people fall from a ladder or roof. So, these are all very common.

“But the difference in an athlete is they need to get back to their former level of functioning. It’s important that they have the optimal treatment. But today at the hotel I saw a lady who had a fracture several weeks ago and still hasn’t had surgery.

“These things should be done within the first week or 10 days of the injury, because after that the bone starts to heal in the wrong position… So, again, it’s all a matter of awareness.”

Dr. Alejandro Badia: Pioneering Orthopedic Care and Education in Hand and Upper Limb Surgery

Dr. Alejandro Badia, MD, FACS, hand and upper limb surgeon was one of the keynote speakers at the 2015 American Association for Hand Surgery Annual Meeting this past Wednesday.

The meeting took place at the Atlantis Resort, Paradise Island; however, Badia was available to speak with The Freeport News briefly.

“I’m so pleased to be in beautiful Bahamas. My mission has been, and always is to create educational synergy and to expose great technology that allows minimally invasive procedure, accelerates recovery, prevents some surgical procedures, and shortens post-surgical rehabilitation.

“This system provides our patients, mostly athletes who depend so much on their physical excellence, with better healthcare and better recovery methods and options,” stated Dr. Badia, Hand and Upper Limb Surgeon at Badia Hand to Shoulder Center in Miami, Florida.

Badia has successfully performed surgery on many professional athletes from around the world.

Badia, MD, FACS, Hand & Upper Limb Surgeon, was recently proclaimed, “One of the top hand surgeons in the United States.” He is the founder and Medical Director of Badia Hand to Shoulder Center, spokesperson and advocate on the latest in orthopedic technology: “ARPWAVE Neuro Therapy” and CEO of the OrthoNOW® Orthopedic Urgent Care franchise network.

Badia is also the past president of the International Society for Sport Traumatology of the Hand (ISSPORTH), which is a society that came into being to educate athletes into seeing the right type of doctor when it comes to matters of the hand and wrist.

He noted that a part of his address was the common injuries to the hand and wrist that athletes can suffer, and also the proper ways of seeking the right help and rehabilitation.

Badia stated that injuries to the hand and wrist, is a topic not commonly spoken about when it comes to athletes.

“It’s kind of a rarely discussed subject. We always talk about hands and knees and ankle injuries and maybe shoulders, but we rarely talk about hand and wrist, and that’s what the symposium was about.

“One of the issues is when an athlete, it doesn’t have to be a professional athlete, it can be people like you and I who like to do certain sports. When we have a problem with our hand our wrist we often go to see a general doctor or we may even see an orthopedist, but the orthopedist doesn’t usually have that expertise in the hand or the wrist,” Badia indicated.

Badia’s recommendation for anybody with a wrist injury or problem was simple, and that is seeking the right kind help as quickly as possible.

“You really want to see the right type of doctor so if there is an acute injury, meaning a bad fall during sports, you want to get help pretty quickly and you want to make sure that the person you’re seeing has expertise in that area.

“If you got something that’s been hurting for quite some time, and you’ve got the luxury of finding the right person, you can look online obviously, but you want to make sure it’s a specialist.

I think the problem is that the public thinks the orthopedic surgeon is a specialist. We are, but now-a-days a spine surgeon is very different from what I do in hand wrist surgery which is different from a foot and ankle surgery.

“So, my recommendation to people who want to get back to the same level of play for sports is that they seek the right person and I think the public, until now, didn’t really know there was a subspecialty called hand surgery,” Badia admitted.

Badia made it known that he in fact knows a few, very good orthopedists in New Providence, but says it can be difficult to launch a sub-specialty in small countries.

.“I know some very fine orthopedists here in Nassau, but the problem many times in smaller countries it’s hard to be able to develop a sub specialty because you may not have enough patients in the immediate area to focus on hand and wrist.

“So, what I do recommend to the orthopedists is when they go to these conferences to attend some of the symposiums that are of that area which they’re a little weaker on.