History of the Mary S. Stern Hand Fellowship

The Mary S. Stern Hand Fellowship was established in 1989 by Drs. Peter Stern (Fellowship Director), Thomas R. Kiefhaber, and John J. McDonough. From inception, it was affiliated with the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and has always been fully accredited through the ACGME. The program trained one fellow each year from its inception until 1993, when a second fellow was added, and then a third in 2006.

From the start and continuing today, the fellowship’s core focus has been on education both in the ‘classroom’ and in the clinical setting. The central educational elements have always included 3 weekly conferences: fellow case presentations, Selected Readings (journal article reviews), and a didactic lecture. In addition, there are monthly cadaveric prosections and access to a microsurgical laboratory.

From inception, fellows have received their training in both the university and private practice settings. Current rotations are at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center (5 full-time attendings), Cincinnati Children’s Hospital (2 full-time attendings) and Beacon Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine (8 attendings). With such a broad-based faculty, fellows are exposed to all the critical elements of hand surgery.

Initially, the fellows came exclusively from an allopathic orthopaedic background. Over the last 2 decades, osteopathic surgeons and plastic surgeons have joined the fellowship ranks. Currently, nearly 90 surgeons participated in the Mary Stern Hand Fellowship and our directory reflects a diversity of sex, ethnicity, and race.

From 1989-2017, Peter J. Stern, MD was the fellowship director. In 2018, Kevin J. Little, MD (pediatric hand) became director, and in 2023 Kagan Ozer, MD (trauma, microsurgeon, scientist) serves as the current fellowship director.