The Radial Nerve

Chapter 15 of Volume 1, Hand & Upper Limb. Revision notes and examiner-style viva questions with model answers for the FRCS (Plast).

14 viva questions in this chapter

1. Take me through the course of the radial nerve.
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2. What does the posterior interosseous nerve supply, and what does it not?
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3. What compresses the nerve in the radial tunnel?
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4. This man has a wrist drop. Examine him.
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5. A 24-year-old comes in after a fall off a motorbike with a closed mid-shaft humeral fracture and a complete wrist drop. He says “am I going to be able to use my hand again?” What do you do?
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6. He has a wrist drop the morning after you plated him. Now what?
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7. A 41-year-old joiner has six months of lateral elbow pain that has not settled with physiotherapy. What is going on?
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8. You decide to decompress him. What do you tell him about the outcome?
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9. A different patient has a painless finger drop. Talk me through it.
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10. A woman has burning and numbness over the dorsum of her thumb and index. What is it and what do you do?
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11. You explore him at four months and the nerve is divided with a 4 cm gap. What now?
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12. What about nerve transfers?
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13. He has an irrecoverable radial nerve palsy. What do you do?
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14. What are the principles, and why pronator teres to extensor carpi radialis brevis specifically?
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