[Treatment errors in hand surgery. Comparison criteria for education in hand surgery and additional training in hand surgery based on error statistics of Chamber of Medicine, North Rhine-Westphalia].

Hand surgery is an interdisciplinary specialty in which the contents of further training in the individual fields differ widely. We have first investigated general quality criteria and then the further training programmes of the specialties general surgery, orthopaedic and trauma surgery as well as plastic and aesthetic surgery. On the basis of the treatment error statistics of the Chamber of Medicine of North Rhine-Westphalia from the years 2004-2008, the treatment error quotas for a period of 5 years were evaluated according to specialty and the presence of additional training in hand surgery. This revealed that treatment errors in hand surgery with 41.7% were markedly more frequent than the general average value of 31.1%. On individual evaluations, the error quota for qualified surgeons without additional training was 44% whereas that for surgeons with additional training was 26%. Most frequently treatment errors were reported for distal radius fractures, followed by soft-tissue and cut injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome and finger fractures. The largest difference in the error quotas for the groups with and without further training in hand surgery was found for soft-tissue injuries including tendon injuries, 13.3% as compared with 53.7%.